MOSCOW, February 28. /TASS/. Experts at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology (the Russian Academy of Sciences) developed Russia's first system to monitor climatically active substances in the Arctic Ocean, the institute's press service told TASS on the occasion of the Arctic Day celebrated on February 28.

"The system features both onboard and autonomous systems to monitor conditions of the natural environment," the press service said. "The Sea-Air-Wave Station (SAWS), a hydrometeorological station, tested during last year's Arctic expedition, is a key element of the system developed by the institute's scientists. Measurements of greenhouse gas concentrations have demonstrated high efficiency of gas analyzers installed on the SAWS. The tests of the first autonomous marine hydrometeorological station in the Arctic have been successful, and the created station configuration will become the basis for development of a buoy system in the subpolar Atlantic and the Arctic."

The system will ensure effective monitoring of all parameters of the surface atmosphere and of the ocean's surface layer to obtain stable estimates necessary to view closed regional balances of gas and energy flows in the ocean. The data from the hydrometeorological station provided for the first time quantitative characteristics of the energy and greenhouse gas flows' variability between the ocean and the atmosphere in real time, the press service added.

The Arctic is a unique region, the so-called "global weather kitchen", because it reacts faster to global climate change. The ocean is an accumulator of heat for long periods of time that absorbs approximately 92% of excess heat entering the atmosphere due to human activity.