East-Siberian Sea. All about sharks
Already from the name of this natural reservoir it is clear that it is located in the area of the northern coast of Eastern Siberia. The boundaries of the sea are mainly represented by conventional lines. Only in some parts is it limited to land. Previously, before the beginning of the 20th century, the sea had several names, including Indigirka and Kolyma. Now it is called East Siberian.
By reading the article, you can find out more detailed information about this body of water: characteristics, climatic conditions. It also describes the resources of the East Siberian Sea and the problems that exist today.
Location
The entire sea is located beyond the Arctic Circle. Its southernmost point is located off the coast of Chaunskaya Bay. All its banks belong to Russian territory. The sea is located in the Arctic Ocean region. This is a place where the influence of the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean is practically no longer felt, and the waters of the Pacific have not yet reached it.
The East Siberian Sea is marginal. It contains the New Siberian Islands (border with the Laptev Sea), Aion, Medvezhye and Shalaurova. The sea itself is located between the Novosibirsk Islands and Wrangel Island. Through straits it connects with the Chukchi and Laptev Seas.
Description and characteristics
In the central and western parts, the banks are sloping, and two lowlands adjoin the coast: Nizhne-Kolyma and Yana-Indigirskaya. The spurs of the Chukotka Highlands approach the coast of the eastern part (east of the mouth of the Kolyma). In some places, rocky cliffs have formed here. On Wrangel Island, on its western coast, they reach up to 400 meters in height. On the New Siberian Islands section, the coastline is monotonous and low-lying. The sea bed is formed by a shelf whose topography is largely flat and inclined slightly in the northeast direction.
Deeper places are typical for the eastern region. The sea here has a depth of up to 54 meters, in the central and western parts - up to 20 meters, and in the northern regions - up to 200 meters (isobath - the boundary of the sea). The greatest depth of the East Siberian Sea is about 915 meters, and the average is 54 meters. In other words, this body of water is completely within the continental shallows.
The water surface area is 944,600 square meters. km. The waters of the sea communicate with the waters of the Arctic Ocean, and therefore the reservoir belongs to the type of marginal continental seas. The volume is approximately 49 thousand cubic meters. km. Practically all year round the air temperature is below zero, so the sea waters are always covered with drifting large ice floes several meters thick.
Salinity
The East Siberian Sea in the eastern and western parts has different meanings salinity. Due to the river flow in the eastern part, the salt concentration decreases. This figure here is about 10-15 ppm. At the confluence of large rivers with the sea, salinity practically disappears. Closer to the ice fields, the concentration increases to 30 units. There is also an increase in salinity with depth, where it can reach 32 ppm.
Relief
The coastline has large bends. In connection with this, the sea in some places pushes the boundaries of the land deeper into the continent, and in some places, on the contrary, the land protrudes far into the sea. There are also areas with an almost flat coastline. Small meanders are mainly found at river mouths.
The east and west coasts have very different topography. The coast washed by the sea from the mouth of the Kolyma to the New Siberian Islands has an almost monotonous landscape. The reservoir in these places borders swampy tundra. The banks here are flat and low.
A more diverse landscape is observed on the coast formed east of the Kalyma River, but mountains predominate here. The sea to the island of Aion is bordered by small hills, some of which have rather steep slopes. The Chaunskaya Bay area is characterized by low, steep banks.
A large area of the seabed is covered with a small sedimentary cover. Islands in the East Siberian Sea are few in number. Most of them are formed due to the foundation. Based on research results (aeromagnetic surveys), it was determined that the composition of shelf sediments mainly includes sandy silt, pebbles and crushed boulders. There are suggestions that some of them are fragments of islands. They are spread throughout the territory by ice. To a greater extent, due to the predominance of flat terrain, the depth of the East Siberian Sea is only 20-25 meters.
Hydrology
Almost the entire year the reservoir is covered with ice. In the eastern areas, even in summer you can see perennial floating ice. They are driven away from the coast by continental winds to the north. Ice drifts in a northwesterly direction due to the circulation of water, which is affected by anticyclones at the North Pole.
The area of the cyclonic circulation increases, and multi-year ice floes enter the sea from polar latitudes after the weakening of the anticyclone. To date, the current system in this reservoir has not been fully studied. But we can say with confidence that the water circulation of these places is characterized by a cyclonic character.
This reservoir, in comparison with other representatives of the Arctic Ocean basin, is characterized by not very high river flow. The rivers of the East Siberian Sea are few in number. The largest river flowing into the sea is the Kolyma. Its drainage is approximately 132 cubic meters. km per year. The second in this same characteristic is the Indigirka River, which brings in half the volume of water over the same period. All this has little effect on the overall hydrological situation.
The average annual precipitation is from 100 to 200 mm. Due to the absence of trenches with great depths in the sea and due to the fact that a significant area is represented by shallow water, surface water occupy huge spaces.
Climate
IN winter period The East Siberian Sea is influenced by southern and southwestern winds. Their speed is approximately 7 meters per second. also in winter time The climate of the sea is greatly influenced by the Siberian Maximum. Pacific cyclones, prevailing in the southeastern parts of the sea, bring snowstorms, strong winds and rather cloudy weather with constantly drizzling rain or sleet.
Flora and fauna
The fauna and flora of the East Siberian Sea are similar to the fauna and flora of the neighboring Laptev Sea, since both are typically arctic. The same mammals and birds, the same fish as in many other northern seas. Seals, narwhals, bearded seals and walruses live here. Polar bears inhabited the islands. These places are also popular with a huge number of nesting birds. You can meet geese here: white-fronted and bean geese. Also inhabited are the crested eider and the rather rare black goose. Large markets of birds gather: kittiwakes, gulls, guillemots.
Extraction sea beast and only local residents engage in fishing in coastal waters. It should be noted that in areas of the river mouths here you can find large schools of white fish. The phytoplankton of the sea is represented by blue-green algae and diatoms. Sometimes pteropods and tunicates appear. The soil is replete with polychaetes, amphipod crustaceans and isopods. Representatives of mammals are beluga whales, seals, walruses and cetaceans (especially minke whales).
The resources of the East Siberian Sea in terms of flora and fauna are relatively poor. This is due, first of all, to rather harsh climate conditions. Only the most frost-resistant representatives took root in these places.
In conclusion about the problems
The problems of the East Siberian Sea are similar to those of most northern seas. For several years, the biological resources of the region, especially whales, have been destroyed. Today, this has led to a significant reduction in the number of these mammals, as well as the extinction of some species.
A global problem is the melting of glaciers, which negatively affects the local fauna. Mention should also be made of the results of human activity (development of hydrocarbon deposits), which negatively affected the condition of the reservoir.
It is called the harshest among all the northern seas, located at a large distance from the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The East Siberian Sea, which washes the northern shores of Russia in the East, for all its shallowness, is literally freezing.
The sea, marginal to the Arctic Ocean, is located along the northern shores of Eastern Siberia between the New Siberian Islands and Wrangel Island, conditionally the administrative shores belong to Yakutia and Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Most of it is delineated by conventional lines, and only on the side adjacent to Russia did nature create its borders. The total area of the sea is quite large: 944,600 sq. km, provided that it cannot be called deep ( average- 54 m).
Borders are usually considered at the points of intersection of the meridians with the islands of Kotelny, Wrangel and capes Anisiy, Blossom, Yakan and Svyatoy Nos. There are practically no islands here, the entire coastline is deeply cut into the land or protrudes from the sea and forms large bends, small meanders lead to river mouths.
As for the nature of the coastline, the eastern one is not at all similar to the western one. Thus, in the area of the New Siberian Islands and the mouth of the Kolyma, there is a tundra dotted with swamps, the terrain is quite flat and low-lying, but closer to the island of Ayon the coast takes on a mountainous landscape. Almost to the shores of the water there are low hills that drop steeply in some places.
The underwater relief is flat and uniform throughout the entire territory. Only in some areas there is a depth of up to 25 m. Experts call them the remains of ancient river valleys.
This sea is often called an important area trade route, through which cargo is transported to the northern regions of Eastern Siberia. The large port of Pevek operates here, and it carries out transit movements from the West to the East of the country.
(Sea trade and transport port of Pevek)
The East Siberian Sea can hardly be called a fishing hub in Russia. For the most part, sea animals are hunted here in the waters adjacent to land. Locals European smelt, capelin, cod and herring are caught here. Near river mouths, valuable whitefish sturgeon and salmon are caught. However, this type of activity does not make a serious economic contribution to the development of the country and region.
East-Siberian Sea- marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located between the New Siberian Islands and Wrangel Island. Surface area 913,600 km². Already from the name it is clear that this sea is located off the northern coast of Eastern Siberia. The boundaries of the East Siberian Sea are mainly conventional lines, and only in some parts is it limited by land. Water of this sea communicate well with the waters of the Arctic Ocean, therefore the East Siberian Sea belongs to the type of continental marginal seas. There are very few islands in the waters of the East Siberian Sea. The sea coastline has large bends.
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Sailing
The Cossacks who mastered Kolyma and Indigirka in the first half of the 17th century went downstream, went out to sea and went to Taimyr, where they dragged their way to the Yenisei, on the banks of which they hunted. First research voyage to historical era was accomplished by the Yakut Cossack Mikhailo Stadukhin in 1644. Stadukhin's assistant Semyon Dezhnev in June 1648 on 7 kochas passed the entire eastern part of the sea from the mouth of the Kolyma and further through the Long Strait and the Bering Strait to the Gulf of Anadyr, where he founded the city of Anadyr. Thus, in 1648 the possibility of end-to-end navigation along the entire coast of the East Siberian Sea was demonstrated.
The mainland seashores and islands were described in the first half of the 18th century by the Great Northern Expedition. All these discoveries were made not on ships, but on sleds. In 1823, Wrangel heard a story from the Chukchi about big island in the north (not yet discovered Wrangel Island), where storms sometimes carried fishing boats away. Wrangel Island was discovered in 1849 by the British frigate Herald, approaching it from the Chukchi Sea. The western coast of the island was discovered in 1867 by the American whaler Thomas Long on the schooner Nile, whose ship passed between the mainland and the island through a strait that is now called Long's Strait. In September 1875, Baron Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld crossed the East Siberian Sea on the sailing and steam ship Vega - the first navigator who managed to navigate the Northern Sea Route along the entire coast of Asia. Then the De Long Islands were discovered. In 1913, the icebreaking steamships "Taimyr" and "Vaigach" discovered an island named after the assistant chief of the expedition, Vilkitsky. Latest discovery was carried out by the next expedition of "Taimyr" and "Vaigach" on August 27, 1914, when Lieutenant Zhokhov, the watchman of "Vaigach", noticed an island with coordinates 76°10"N 153°E, which was named Zhokhov Island. After 1932, when The icebreaker "Sibiryakov" passed the Northern Sea Route in one navigation, and regular ship voyages are made to the East Siberian Sea.
Bottom relief
The sea lies on the shelf. The underwater relief of the space occupied by the East Siberian Sea is a plain. This plain slopes slightly from southwest to northeast. The seabed is mostly flat, without significant depressions or hills. Most of the water expanses of the East Siberian Sea have a depth of up to 20 - 25 m. The deepest trenches are located on the bottom of the sea in the northeastern part from the mouths of the Indigirka and Kolyma rivers. There is an assumption that these trenches used to be areas of river valleys. But later these rivers were flooded by the sea. In the northeast of the sea there are quite deep places. Maximum depth - 915 meters.
Climate and hydrological regime
The climate of the East Siberian Sea has distinctive feature: The sea is influenced by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The average temperature in January is approximately – 28 – 30 0 C. In winter, the weather is mostly clear. Only sometimes cyclones disrupt the established calm weather for several days. Atlantic cyclones, which prevail in the western part of the sea, contribute to stronger winds and higher temperatures. Pacific cyclones, which prevail in the southeastern part of the sea, bring strong winds, snowstorms and cloudy weather. The average July temperature is about 0+4 0 C. The decrease in temperature in the northern part of the sea is affected by the influence of Arctic ice. In the southern part of the sea, proximity to the warm continent contributes to an increase in temperature. The East Siberian Sea is characterized by cloudy weather in the summer. Very often there is light rain, and occasionally even sleet.
Temperatures sea water low, in the north they are close to −1.8°C in both winter and summer. To the south in summer the temperature rises upper layers up to 5°C. The salinity of the sea is different in the western and eastern parts of the sea. River flow leads to a decrease in salinity to 10-15‰, and at the mouths of large rivers to almost zero. With depth, salinity increases to 32‰. The sea is covered with ice almost all year round. In the eastern part of the sea, even in summer, floating multi-year ice.
Flora and fauna
Vegetable and animal world The East Siberian Sea is poor due to harsh ice conditions. But in the areas adjacent to the river mouths, you can find omul, whitefish, grayling, polar smelt, navaga, polar cod and flounder, salmonids - char and nelma. Mammals include the walrus, seals, and polar bear; of birds - guillemots, gulls, cormorants.
Economic importance
The coastal zone is characterized as an area with weak economic activity. Fishing is of local importance. The Northern Sea Route passes through the East Siberian Sea; the main port is Pevek (Chaun Bay). The East Siberian Sea is a promising oil and gas bearing area, the development of which is difficult due to harsh natural conditions.
Ecology
The waters of the East Siberian Sea are relatively clean. Only in Pevek Bay slight water pollution was noted, but in Lately The environmental situation here is improving. The waters of Chaunskaya Bay are slightly polluted with petroleum hydrocarbons.
Already from the name it is clear that this sea is located off the northern coast. Borders East Siberian Sea Mostly there are conventional lines, and only in some parts is it limited by land. From the west, the sea border runs along Kotelny and further along the eastern border. The northern boundary coincides with the edge of the continental shelf. From the east, the border of the sea runs along the meridian of 1800 east longitude before, after - along the northwestern coast of this island to Cape Blossom and Cape Yakan, located on the mainland. From the southern part it is limited by the coastline of the mainland (from Cape Yakan to Cape Svyatoy Nos).
The waters of this sea communicate well with the waters of the Arctic Ocean, therefore the East Siberian Sea belongs to the type of continental marginal seas. Within the boundaries outlined, the area of this sea is 913 thousand km2. The volume of water is approximately 49 thousand km 3. The average sea depth is 54 m, the maximum depth is 915 m.
There are very few islands in the waters of the East Siberian Sea. The sea coastline has large bends. Thus, in some places the sea pushes the boundaries of the land inland, and in some places the land protrudes into the sea. There are also areas with an almost flat coastline. Small meanders are formed mainly at river mouths. the western and eastern coasts of the East Siberian Sea are very different. The coast, which is washed by the sea from the mouth of the Kolyma, is quite monotonous. Here the sea borders on swampy areas. These places are characterized by low and gentle banks. The coast located east of Kalyma has a more varied landscape, mainly dominated by mountains. As far as the island of Aion, the sea is bordered by small hills, which sometimes have steep slopes. In the area of Chaunskaya Bay there are low but steep banks.
The underwater relief of the space occupied by the East Siberian Sea represents. This plain slopes slightly from southwest to northeast. The seabed is mostly flat, without significant depressions or hills. Most of the water expanses of the East Siberian Sea have a depth of up to 20 - 25 m. The deepest ones are located on the bottom of the sea in the northeastern part from the mouths of the Indigira and Kolyma rivers. There is an assumption that these trenches used to be areas of river valleys. But later these rivers were flooded by the sea. The western part of the sea is characterized by shallow depth; this area is called the Novosibirsk Shoal. In the northeast of the sea there are quite deep places. But even here the depth does not exceed 100 m.
East-Siberian Sea
The East Siberian Sea is located at high latitudes, not far from permanent ice. The sea also borders a wide part of the mainland. Due to this location, the East Siberian Sea has a distinctive feature: the sea is under the influence of the Atlantic and. Cyclones formed above sometimes enter the western part of the sea. The eastern regions of the sea are accessible to Pacific origin. Thus, the climate of the East Siberian Sea can be characterized as polar marine, which is greatly influenced by the continent. The peculiarities of the continental climate are significantly manifested in winter and summer. During transition seasons they do not significantly influence, since during these periods the processes are not constant.
In winter, the Siberian Maximum has a great influence on the climate of the East Siberian Sea. This determines the predominance of southwestern and southern ones, the speed of which reaches 6 - 7 m/s. These winds move from the continent and therefore contribute to the spread of cold air. The average temperature in January is approximately – 28 – 30°C. In winter, the weather is mostly clear. Only sometimes cyclones disrupt the established calm weather for several days. Atlantic cyclones, which prevail in the western part of the sea, contribute to stronger winds and higher temperatures. Pacific cyclones, which prevail in the southeastern part of the sea, bring strong winds and cloudy weather. On coasts with mountainous terrain, the Pacific cyclone contributes to the formation of strong winds - a foehn. As a result of this storm wind, temperatures rise and there is less air.
In summer, low temperatures are formed over the sea, and low levels over land. In this regard, winds blow predominantly from the north. At the beginning of the warm season, the winds do not yet gain sufficient strength, but by mid-summer their speed averages 6 - 7 m/s. By the end of summer, the western part of the sea turns into areas of strong storms. At this time, this section becomes the most dangerous along the entire Northern Sea Route. Very often the wind speed reaches 10 - 15 m/s. In the southeastern part of the sea such strong winds are not observed. The wind speed here can only increase due to hair dryers. Constant winds from the northern and northeastern directions contribute to the preservation low temperatures air. In the northern part of the sea, the average July temperature is about 0 - +1°C, in coastal areas the temperature is slightly higher than +2 - 3°C. The decrease in temperature in the northern part of the sea is affected by the influence of ice. In the southern part of the sea, proximity to the warm continent contributes to an increase in temperature. The East Siberian Sea is characterized by cloudy weather in the summer. Very often there is light rain, and occasionally even sleet.
East-Siberian Sea
In autumn, the influence of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans weakens, which affects the decrease. Thus, the East Siberian Sea is characterized by cold summers; unstable windy weather in the western and eastern regions of the sea in the summer-autumn period and calm in the central territories.
A small amount of river water enters the East Siberian Sea. During the year the volume is approximately 250 km 3 . (the largest river flowing into this sea) brings about 132 km 3 per year. Another Indigirka gives 59 km 3. The remaining rivers flowing into the East Siberian Sea are small, and therefore discharge small volumes of water. Largest quantity fresh water enters the southern part of the sea. Maximum flow occurs in summer. Due to the small quantity fresh water does not enter far into the sea, but mainly spreads near river mouths. Due to the fact that the East Siberian Sea has big sizes, river flow does not have a significant impact on it.
The waters of the East Siberian Sea are relatively clean. Only in Pevek Bay there has been slight water pollution, but recently the environmental situation here has been improving. The waters of Chaunskaya Bay are slightly polluted with hydrocarbons.
The East Siberian Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located between the New Siberian Islands and Wrangel Island. The sea is connected through straits to the Chukchi Sea and the Laptev Sea. The shores are mountainous and slightly indented. The average depth is 66 meters, the greatest is 358 meters. Most of the year the sea is covered with ice. Salinity ranges from 5‰ near river mouths to 30‰ in the north. The following rivers flow into the sea: Indigirka, Alazeya, Kolyma, Bolshaya Chukochia. There are several bays on the sea coast: Chaunskaya Bay, Omulyakhskaya Bay, Khromskaya Bay, Kolyma Bay, Kolyma Bay. Large islands: Novosibirsk, Lyakhovsky, De Long Islands. There are no islands in the center of the sea.
