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Ice melting, but Barents Sea stays cool
Winter ice decreases 10 percent since 2000, but study may be helpful for oil explorers

The water surrounding Bjørnøya has less ice cover, but is losing most of its extra heat due to stronger ocean currents, according to a team of Bergen researchers. Photo by Lars H. Smedsrud.

Less ice doesn't necessarily mean warmer water in the Barents Sea, since tides make it "a robust and effective ocean cooler," according to a new study by four Bergen oceanographers.

There's 10 percent less winter ice cover than at the start of the millennium due to warmer air, conclude the researchers who took 55,000 temperature measurements of the sea during a four-year time span. But other factors such as strong tides and shallow depth limited the rise of the average water temperature to less than 1° Celsius.

That may provide a boost for commercial interests in the heated battle about the Arctic's vast natural resources and concerns about the impact of tapping into them.

"At the ice retreats it may be good news for those who want to explore for oil and gas, and bad news for environmentalists," wrote Torsten Hanssen in an article for Adresseavisen.

The paper, published in Ocean Science, claims to take a new approach in understanding the Barents Sea. The results show that while the waters have a relatively shallow depth of 230 meters, it releases more energy into the atmosphere than any other Arctic sea.

"During the last decade the Barents Sea has experienced an atmospheric warming and an increased ocean heat transport," an abstract of the study notes. "The Barents Sea responds to such large changes by adjusting temperature and heat loss.

As a result "there is little net surface heat loss annually in the north," the abstract notes.

The researchers divided the Barents Sea into northern and southern regions, determining the northern migration of sea ice and larger open ocean areas in the south are compensating for much of the increase in ocean heat transport since the mid 1990s, according to Science Daily.

"The heat is lost by the ocean in the southern Barents Sea through evaporation and sensible fluxes, as there is an approximate balance between the incoming solar, and the outgoing long wave, radiation," the publication notes. "The northern Barents Sea receives little ocean heat transport, leading to early sea ice formation during winter."

All that energy in the water isn't an entirely good thing for oil companies hoping to explore the region.

"The longer the waves, the more energy, a factor that must be included in the calculation of anchoring systems," wrote Bjørn Tore Bjørsvik for the industry publication PetroNews.

A clear answer on the potential effect for floating ship facilities in the Barents Sea is unclear, but "probably the challenge is well manageable" through remedies such as larger vessels.

However, "from the extent of experience from the Norwegian Sea it can be assumed it is not entirely without problems," Bjørsvik added.

Published in the Feb. 23, 2010, print edition.

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