Shoreline Dynamics of the islands of the northern part of the Kara Sea (paper 1. Ushakov Island)

The analysis of a large complex of materials – satellite images, UAV surveys, meteorological observations of polar stations, and archival data made it possible to establish the shoreline retreat rates of Ushakov Island. The island is entirely coved by the glacial dome formed above the late Cretaceous and Quaternary rock formations. The ice/rock interface is partially located below sea level. lying on the Ushakov island is located in the northern part of the Central Kara Upland and was discovered in 1935 by Soviet sea expedition visited by scientific expeditions extremely rare. For a long time, Ushakov Island was maintained by slightly negative (up to 1% volume annually) ice balance, a short ice-free period, and protected from storm waves by fast ice. At the beginning of the XXI century, the situation changed – the air temperature began to increase noticeably, the area of sea ice decreased, and the wave activity increased during the warm season. The edges of Ushakov ice dome began to break off and float into the sea as icebergs evenly around the perimeter with an increasing rate: from 10.9 m/year in 1954–2011, up to 27.3 m/year in 2011–2019. The area of the island decreased in 2002–2019 by 230.8 ha/year, in 2015–2019 – up to 294 ha/year. The glacier surface around the polar station has decreased by 15 m in 65 years. A monument of science and technology - the polar station (built in 1954, 800 m from the edge of the glacier) was washed away to the sea in 2018. The subtype of ice shores has changed from ice barriers up to 3 m high (low cliffs of floating ice) to ice walls up to 45 m and more.

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