And indeed most of the southern edge of the Laptev opening closely follows the 30m submarine contour with the exception of the section around Kotelny (?) Island. Of course now I am wondering why it follows the shelf contour, and what effect does the Lena river (which looks pretty large) have on the melting.
The Lena River is certainly a big beast, with a huge maximum discharge when the snow melts. June is the big month - but apparently snow-melting is also happening in May now. Presumably large amounts (200gt ?) of fresh water entering the Laptev in just one month must impact how ice loss happens in the Laptev. See data below and images attached.
And yes, this stuff is a wonderful distraction from less interesting but necessary work
From
Wikipedia:-
The Lena (Russian: Ле́на, IPA: [ˈlʲɛnə]; Russian Buryat: Зүлхэ; Evenki: Елюенэ; Sakha: Өлүөнэ) is the easternmost of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean (the other two being the Ob' and the Yenisey). With a mean annual discharge of 588 cubic kilometers per year,
it is the 5th largest river globally by discharge and the second largest of the Arctic rivers (after the Yenisey)[2]. It is the largest river whose catchment is entirely within the Russian territorial boundaries. Permafrost underlies most of the catchment, with 77% of the catchment containing continuous permafrost.
Tributaries
- left Kirenga, Vilyuy
- right Vitim, Olyokma, Aldan Source
- location Baikal Mountains, Irkutsk Oblast, Russia - elevation 1,640 m (5,381 ft)
Mouth Lena Delta
- location Arctic Ocean, Laptev Sea Basin 2,500,000 km2 (965,255 sq mi)
Discharge for Laptev Sea[1]
- average 16,871 m3/s (595,794 cu ft/s)
- max 241,000 m3/s (8,510,835 cu ft/s) - min 366 m3/s (12,925 cu ft/s)
From a 2002 paper https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/YangEtAl2002.pdfThe long-term (1935–1999) monthly records of temperature, precipitation, stream
flow, river ice thickness, and active layer depth have been analyzed in this study to
examine Lena River hydrologic regime and recent change. Remarkable hydrologic
changes have been identified in this study. During the cold season (October–April),
significant increases (25–90%) in stream flow and decrease in river ice thickness have
been found due to warming in Siberia. In the snowmelt period (May–June), strong
warming in spring leads to an advance of snowmelt season into late May and results in a
lower daily maximum discharge in June. During summer months (July–September) the
changes in stream flow hydrology are less significant in comparison to those for winter
and spring seasons.