Future challenges in shelf seas - Introduction to the Physical and Biological Oceanography of Shelf Seas - page 357

Kolyma

North
America

Mackenzie

Russia

Beaufort
Sea

Lena

Arctic Ocean

Kara
Sea

Yenisey

80ºN

Ob

Greenland

Barents
Sea

70ºN

0º

Figure 11.2 The major rivers supplying freshwater to the shelf seas around the Arctic Ocean.
Isobaths are marked at 200, 400 and 2000 metres. Coast data based on (Wessel and Smith,
1996 ), figure provided by Clare Postlethwaite, National Oceanography Centre, UK.

have generally received limited research effort either because the environment is
difficult to work in or because the bordering nations have other priorities for their
investment.

11.2.1 Arctic shelf seas

The Arctic is host to very large areas of shelf which up to now have been little
studied. You can see in Fig. 11.2 that approximately 40% of the area of the Arctic
Ocean is occupied by shelf seas, much of it in the very broad shelf regions north of
Russia where the shelf extends out as much as 1000 km from the coastline before it
reaches the deep water of the Arctic basin. Much of this shelf area is relatively