Participants of the 59th voyage of the ship "Akademik Boris Petrov" along the Northern Sea Route returned to Sakhalin

 

The route of the ABP-59 expedition passed through the seas of the Russian Arctic: Pechora, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, and the western sector of the Chukchi Sea.

 

Several groups (detachments) of scientists and specialists from various scientific organizations in Russia and China worked on board the vessel.

 

Hydrologists had to perform oceanographic soundings along the vessel's route and at selected sites, study the thermohaline structure and dynamics of waters in the Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, and East Siberian Sea in September - October 2024.

 

Based on the materials obtained as a result of soundings covering the entire water column of the shelf (depths along the vessel's route did not exceed 50 m), the vertical structure of temperature and salinity of sea water, optical properties of the surface layer of the sea along the vessel's route were studied.

 

A total of 76 soundings were carried out at 36 stations during the voyage, 615,718 measurements of temperature and salinity were made. The results obtained were compared with the materials of similar expeditions carried out in the seas of the Russian Arctic earlier.

 

The most interesting result of the conducted research was the established fact of anomalous freshening of the surface layer, caused by the unusually large area of ​​distribution of the Lena River plume during the research period, recorded in the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea. For the first time, anomalously low salinity of 20 PES was recorded north of the New Siberian Islands.

 

In the Kara Sea, to the northwest of the Gulf of Ob, a lens of freshened water, caused by the Ob River runoff, was found that is atypical for this region. This lens was traced from 74° N 67° E to 76° N 75° E.

 

In the Pechora Sea, in the area of ​​the study area, the water column was completely mixed from the surface to the bottom (~40 m). This was apparently caused by prolonged strong winds and storm waves.

 

Methane emissions were also noted.

 

It is noteworthy that the Akademik Boris Petrov was the last in the 24 navigation to return in mid-October, without the help of icebreakers. This allowed the expedition to be completed on time and safely returned to the port of Murmansk.

 

VNIRO Press Service