Carbon Cycle in the Russian Arctic Seas [Hardcover]

This study analyzes carbon-cycle conditions controlling the state of the Arctic ecosystem and their seasonal variations. Territory covered includes the Barents, White, Kara, Laptev, East-Siberian and Chukchi Seas, considering inter-correlations between sources of organic carbon, their fluxes, recycling and burial in bottom sediments. All biological communities (phythoplankton, macrophythobenthos, microphythobentos, bacterioplankton, zooplankton and zoobenthos) are taken into account regarding their participation in the carbon cycle.

At present, studies of the Arctic Basin are of particular importance to the world scientific community due to the strong influence of this region on the global climate, its enormous mineral and hydrocarbon resources, the poor knowledge about the polar biosphere, and the growing anthropogenic pollution of the Arctic (Gramberg et al. 2000; KIuev 2000). Therefore, the forthcoming century is sometimes justly named the century of the Arctic. Global climatic changes attract the close attention of scientists from all over the world. The prevalent concept that climate warming is a minor positive anomaly in the planetary temperature is documented by the analyses of hundreds of thousands of deep-sea samples. Forecasts predict a tendency to even stronger warming over the next decades (Watson et al. 1998). The climate warming is accompanied by a reduction in the area and thickness of the ice cover, a negative balance of the Arctic glaciers, a northward migration of the arboreal front, an increase in the permafrost temperature in the Russian Arctic, and a tendency to the growth of biological productivity (Serreze et al. 2000; Morison et al. 2001). Carbon cycling strongly affects the earth's climate;, its study in the Arctic Seas of Russia is an essential link in the solution of the global climate change problem.1 Introduction.- 2 Features of the Arctic Seas of Russia and Their Ecosystems.- 3 Biological Production of the Arctic Selƒ.