Fresh water masses in the Kara Sea during summer

The Kara Sea has one of the largest regions of fresh water influence (ROFI) in the world. Previous dumping of containers of radioactive waste materials into this sea has recently been reported. In addition, the watershed that supplies the Kara Sea ROFI contains many impoundments of radioactive wastes. There are serious concerns that breaching of the containers or the impoundments may cause radioactive materials to enter the Kara Sea and, in time, the Arctic and the North Atlantic ocean. Results from measurements made in 1994 have shown that features, such as estuarine outflow fronts, eddies and ice melting, create highly heterogeneous conditions; consequently, temporally and spatially averaged representations of the data can be ambiguous. The 1994 results give a description that fits reasonably well with the historical data available to us, showing a general northern transport of water from the Ob and Yenisey estuaries.