Seas And Oceans Codexery

Kara Sea

A marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, named for the Kara River, with a name possibly meaning 'hummocked ice' or 'black'.

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Novy Port and Dikson serve as its main ports; the sea is frozen for ten months each year, yet it remains a significant fishing ground.[1]

Key facts and history

Water circulation patterns in the Kara Sea are complex, and no typical current pattern persists throughout the year.[2][3] The sea is ice-covered between September and May and heavily influenced by freshwater runoff from Russian rivers.[2] In 1878, Finnish explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld sailed across the Kara Sea and became the first to force the Northeast Passage.[4] According to one explanation, "kara" comes from a Nenets word for "hummocked ice"; another theory traces it to the Turkic word "kara", meaning "black".[5]

Significant but undeveloped petroleum and natural gas reserves are found in the East-Prinovozemelsky field, which is part of the West Siberian Oil Basin within the Kara Sea.[1] The Nordenskiöld Archipelago is the largest island group in the sea, consisting of five major subgroups and more than ninety islands.[6] Except for Ushakov Island at the far northern edge, none of the islands in the Kara Sea have glaciers, despite the high latitude.[6]

What the cited sources add

The Barents Observer reports that Russian and European experts agree the dumped Soviet-era nuclear reactors in the Kara Sea cannot stay on the seafloor forever.[7] The reactors from submarines K-11, K-19 and K-140, the entire submarine K-27, and spent uranium fuel from the icebreaker Lenin must be lifted and secured.[7] Special priority should be given to the submarine K-27 in the Kara Sea and K-159 in the Barents Sea.[7] The reactors, the submarine K-27, and about 17,000 containers with radioactive waste were dumped on the east side of Novaya Zemlya.[7]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Kara Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Sanksjoner kan avslutte boring i Karahavet", DN, 16 September 2014 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Kara Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Harms, "Modeling the seasonal variability of hydrography and circulation in the Kara Sea", Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 15 June 1999, p. 13431–13448; Pavlov, "Hydrographic structure and variability of the Kara Sea: Implications for pollutant distribution", Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, 1995, p. 1369–1390 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Kara Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Schauer, "Atlantic Water flow through the Barents and Kara Seas", Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, 2002, p. 2281–2298; Harms, "Modeling the seasonal variability of hydrography and circulation in the Kara Sea", Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 15 June 1999, p. 13431–13448 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Kara Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dresen, "Men from Estonia on the Arctic Ocean and the Ob River", Go Arctic 2021, 2021, p. 56–61 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Kara Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Varshavsky, "Geograficheskie nazvaniya mira : toponimicheski slovar", Russkie Slovari, 1998, p. 191; Vize, "Karskoye more // Morya Sovetskoy Arktiki: Ocherki po istorii issledovaniya", Izdatel'stvo Glavsevmorputi, 1939, p. 180–217; Everett-Heath, "The Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names", Oxford University Press, 2018 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Kara Sea" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Arctic Glaciers; Ushakov Island (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. "Lifting Russia's accident reactors from the Arctic seafloor will cost nearly €300 million", The Barents Observer, 8 March 2020. facts only, no text reused. thebarentsobserver.com

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Kara Sea (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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