MOSCOW, June 14. /TASS/. The Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Oceanology sent an expedition to the Kara Sea onboard the Mstislav Keldysh vessel to study how climate change affects conditions of Arctic ice, the institute's press service said.
"Scientists will take measurements during the spring period, which is a key period for Arctic seas. They will measure seasonal ice loss and maximum river runoff. New results are necessary for forecasting changes in the Arctic marine natural complexes under the influence of modern climatic trends and the increasing anthropogenic pressure, for the formation of an environmental management strategy adapted to modern conditions and approaches to environmentally friendly human activities in the Arctic," the press service said in a release.
The work will be carried out in the Kara Sea area that in many ways can be eyed as a model to study most important processes in the Siberian Arctic. Along the expedition's route, scientists will take continuous measurements of hydro-physical, hydro-optical and bio-physical parameters in the sea's surface layer and will conduct accompanying sampling by using 60 oceanology and 30 hydro-physical, biological, geological and geo-chemical stations.
The 43 days long expedition is led by Academician Mikhail Flint, Head of the Institute's Ecology of Seas and Oceans Department. It is the 14th expedition in a long-term series of marine field research under the program "Ecosystems of the Siberian Arctic seas," which the institute's scientists began in 2007. The studies, conducted in the Kara, East Siberian and Laptev Seas in different seasons and years with different climatic conditions, create the basis for understanding the Arctic's variability under the influence of natural climatic and anthropogenic factors.
"Results of earlier studies point to significant changes in ecosystems of the Earth's Arctic regions due to two main causes - global and regional climatic processes and various forms of increasing anthropogenic impacts. Climate change in the Arctic is stronger than elsewhere on the Earth. Scientists have found that over recent two decades, the area of ice cover in the summer has significantly decreased, the ice-free period in many regions has become longer, the temperature of air and surface waters has raised, the flow of northern rivers has increased, and its regime and influence on epicontinental Arctic marine areas have changed," the scientists noted.