The Arctic Environmental Problems - New Ecoinformatics Tools in Environmental Science: Applications and Decision-making - page 532

stabilization processes of the vertical distribution are delayed by 10 12 years

-

compared to the other water areas of the Arctic Basin.
The results of the simulation experiments show that variations of the initial data

by 100 %, change the stabilization time by no more than 30 %, so that the

distributions take shape in 4

±

flow into
the Arctic Basin. Figure 6.9 shows the variations in the simulation results under a
change in the river

8 years. One unstable parameter is the river fl

-

flow to the Arctic Basin. The radio nuclear pollution is reduced
by 80 % when the river

fl

flow increases by
50 %, the radio nuclear pollution of the Arctic Basin increases by only 58 %.
Hence, a

fl flow decreases by 50 %. While the river fl

flow estimate can cause a <100 % deviation of the
simulation results for radio nuclear pollutants. As follows from the other curves of
Fig. 6.6 , such deviations are still less for heavy metals and oil hydrocarbons.
The SSMAE allows for the estimation of a wide spectrum of radio nuclear
pollution parameters. Thus, this study shows a dependence of the biological
transformation mechanism on the initial prerequisites. The biological transport of
radionuclides downward out of the mixed layer, varies in a wide interval from
months to scores of years. The vertical transport by biological elements is divided
between 11 % for migration by living organisms and 89 % for transport by dead
organisms. There is a stable result in that the lower trophic levels of the arctic
ecosystem have a greater concentration of radionuclides than the higher trophic
levels. But it is evident that for a higher precision of block MPPR the model of the
biological processes must consider separately each radioactive element and its
interaction with the plankton. The variant of MPPR realized here considers the
physical processes as the major forces.

± 50 % error in the river fl

6.4.6.3 The Dynamics of Arctic Basin Pollution by Heavy Metals

The results of the simulation experiment are given in Table 6.11 . We see that the
stabilization of the average content of heavy metals on the full water area of the Arctic
Basin is achieved in 3 5 years. Under this stable regime, the concentration of heavy

metals in the compartments

-

X R [ X P (river mouths and ports) is six times higher than
in the Central aquatory and two times higher than in X c [ X B [ X N (the near-shore

waters, the Bering Strait and the south boundary of the Norwegian Sea). The con-
centration of heavy metals in the phytoplankton is 18% lower than in the zooplankton
and 29 % lower than in the nekton. There is observed a process of accumulation of
heavy metals in the upper trophic levels; moreover the relation of the concentration of
heavy metals in the phytoplankton to their concentration in the other trophic levels
varies from 0.3 in

X R [ X P to 0.5 in the open part of the Arctic Basin.
The spatial features of the distribution of heavy metals in the sea water is char-
acterized by more rapid accumulation into the water areas adjoining the west coastline
of Novaya Zemlya and situated at the boundary between the Jan-Mayen and East-
Iceland currents. The central water area of the Arctic Basin has a quasi-uniform
distribution of heavy metals concentration. The vertical gradients of heavy metals
vary in the interval from 0.11 to 1.54 mg m − 2 day − 1 . The forms of the vertical