#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. A youth group of oceanologists for the first time discovered abnormally high internal waves in the Russian sector of the Arctic.
Scientists carried out measurements in the Kara Gate strait, connecting the Barents and Kara seas off the coast of Taimyr. It was found that when sea currents interact with an uneven bottom, abnormally powerful internal waves up to 40 meters high arise here, Scientific Russia reports.
The discovery of such powerful internal waves can be useful in solving a number of applied problems related to the exploration and production of oil and gas fields in the Arctic, laying pipelines and underwater communications, and ensuring the safety of navigation along the Northern Sea Route.
Internal waves form underwater at the boundary between less dense and denser waters. Most often they occur when sea currents, including tidal currents, encounter an uneven seabed in their path. This puts water particles out of balance, and the resulting vibrations can propagate away from the source over long distances – tens and even hundreds of kilometers.
Typically, intense internal waves have a height of more than ten meters, but there are cases when their height in the Arctic reached the size of a multi-story building – 40–50 meters. Such high waves have a strong impact on the transport of heat, nutrients, living organisms and pollutants both vertically and horizontally. They can affect the transmission of acoustic signals underwater, damage underwater structures, break up sea ice and lead to the formation of polynyas.
The authors of the article for the first time recorded huge internal waves 40 meters high in the Kara Gate strait in Taimyr.
“The Institute, within the Science national project, for the first time managed to carry out unique measurements of the characteristics of marine turbulence in the Russian Arctic in the summer of 2023 during the Floating University’s voyage. We expect that analysis of the last year’s expedition results will allow us to unravel even more mysteries of ocean dynamics hidden in the depths of the sea and under the ice of the Arctic”, said one of the scientific article authors Igor Kozlov.
Previously, the Nornickel company helped scientists count the Arctic ocean inhabitants.
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Text: Denis Kozhevnikov, Photo: author
