BARENTS SEA, July 5. /TASS/. The Arctic Floating University expedition onboard the Professor Molchanov scientific/research vessel hit the route's northernmost point and began works at the section from the Salm Island on Franz Josef Land to Cape Zhelaniya on Novaya Zemlya's Severny Island, a TASS correspondent reported on Tuesday.
The ship is near the Salm Island, which the expedition members can see as clearly as the Lamon Island. The sea is still, the sun is shining brightly, and the weather is favorable for the planned work.
"We are lucky this year, because in 2022 the experts were unable to make this section, to reach these northern points, due to the ice conditions. This year, the weather favors us," the expedition's leader Alexander Saburov told TASS. "I hope [the Professor] Molchanov will manage to cross the small ice tongue that we can see on satellite images."
A section is a line between fixed coordinates, where scientists take measurements and water samples. The section from the Salm Island (Franz Josef Land) to Cape Zhelaniya (Novaya Zemlya) is very important and interesting in terms of how water masses get distributed in the Barents Sea. Such studies should be conducted rather at the same points every year. In 2022, the Professor Molchanov ran into solid ice, and therefore the expedition could not make it to the first planned point, and the scientists had to begin the work a little further to the south. "Here, we examine how the Atlantic water mass gets into the Arctic, we are watching it, and find the center," Anna Vesman, leading the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute's group, told TASS.
The Floating University's oceanology experts study for the first time the carbonate system, the ocean's buffering capacity, that is, how much more carbon dioxide from the air the sea can absorb. "Cold water dissolves gases very well. The ocean is a large system that absorbs climatically active gases from the atmosphere. But the more it absorbs, the more this changes the ocean acidity, and at some point the flow may move into the other direction," she continued. "We measure CO2 in the atmosphere, register parameters in the ocean, and then we will calculate in what directions carbon dioxide flows are moving."
It is very complicated to obtain all the necessary measurements to assess the Arctic Ocean's carbonate system, since it is problematic to get to the region and because experts have to take a number of measurements at a time. By analyzing the measurements, obtained during the expedition, specialists will update the extremely limited estimates of the ocean's conditions, and will have a wider understanding of how climate change influences the Arctic seas' ecosystems.
Sun in Arctic water
Simultaneously with those measurements, scientists at the section's each point study the total solar radiation in the water layer. A device on the deck measures it at the surface, and scientists lower into the water two devices to certain horizons, thus learning how deep the solar radiation penetrates.
Later on, the experts will compare the obtained data with the results of tests on chlorophyll A contents, which oceanology experts will receive. This way, scientists will find the relationship between the amount of solar radiation entering the water and the vital activity of chlorophyll A and its distribution in the ocean. Chlorophyll A is a nutrient for zooplankton.
At the section's first point, the sun's rays reached a depth of 30 m. "At this point, the solar radiation penetrates very deeply. Before lowering our underwater complex, we lower the Secchi disk (a white disk of 20-40 cm in diameter, used as a standard method to assess the transparency of water - TASS) to see the water transparency," Ekaterina Zotova, a junior researcher at AARI (Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, St. Petersburg), told TASS. "Today the measured water transparency was 18 m, which is a lot for the Barents Sea, as usually it is much less. The photic layer is about twice bigger than the transparency, so it reaches up to 30 meters. But, I think, this is the first and last point of the kind, and things will get worse further on."
The vessel is sailing southeast towards the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya. The expedition plans to continue working at the section for another day and a half.
The project's partners and sponsors are the Ministry for Development of the Far East and Arctic, VTB, Novatek, Norilsk Nickel, the Arkhangelsk Region's government, and the Russian Geographical Society.