Abstract
The White Sea is a small shallow semi-closed sea in the North-West of Russia. It is strongly affected by induced tides, so the tidal motion dominates in the sea. Sea ice is seasonal and the water salinity is less than in the neighbouring Barents sea due to strong river discharge. We review the sources of in-situ and satellite data that are available for the sea, and describe those few numerical models, together with the challenges that are faced. We focus on the large-scale circulation and thermohaline fields, but also cover sea ice, river runoff, and pelagic biogeochemical data.
Highlights
The White Sea is unique; it belongs completely to Russia, serves as gates to the Arctic, and it can be considered as a model of the Arctic [1]
We describe sources of in situ and remote sensing data, which were collected for the sea, available reanalysis data, and comprehensive numerical models that are maintained today
The data on the temperature and salinity of the White Sea water and concentration of biogen matter and chlorophyll a at various depth levels in different regions from the year 2000 up to today has been collected in a database; most measurements were made in ice-free periods
Summary
The White Sea is unique; it belongs completely to Russia, serves as gates to the Arctic, and it can be considered as a model of the Arctic [1]. The White Sea has been playing an important role for Russia for ages As it is an inner sea, its resources were initially mostly used by the people who lived at its coast. This group of people is called pomors; they were rather isolated, built special ships, developed fishing gear and methods of hunting the sea animals, and learned to navigate in the harsh boreal conditions. This knowledge allowed pomors to travel out of the White Sea far to the north, up to the Spitsbergen ( known as Svalbard) and Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Kara Sea. the White Sea was the starting point of exploring the Arctic, as far as 500 years ago.
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