ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Physical Oceanography
Ob–Yenisei and Lena plumes: wind–driven dynamics and variability
Provisionally accepted
- 1Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny, Russia
- 2Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
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River plumes formed by the Ob, Yenisei, and Lena rivers in the Eurasian Arctic are among the largest river plumes globally in terms of area. In this article, a detailed analysis of newly available satellite-derived surface salinity data retrieved for the Eurasian Arctic is presented. Two dominant spreading types of the Ob–Yenisei plume in the Kara Sea are identified. Under westerly–southwesterly winds, the plume remains coastally trapped along the southern coast of the sea, propagates eastward towards the Vilkitskiy Strait and into the Laptev Sea. Its area scales linearly with the combined Ob–Yenisei river discharge volume. Under easterly– northeasterly winds, the Ob–Yenisei plume expands toward the central and northern Kara Sea. Strong northeasterly winds can drive its advection into the northern part of Kara Sea, with plume areas up to 320 thousand km2. In the Eastern Arctic, the Lena plume exhibits two patterns governed by the presence or absence of wind–driven advection from the Laptev Sea to the East Siberian Sea via the Sannikov and Laptev Straits, controlled by winds over the southeastern Laptev Sea. Within the East Siberian Sea, the Lena plume behaves largely independently and is primarily wind–forced. Its area could exceed 800 thousand km2 and shows weak sensitivity to river discharge volume.
Keywords: river plume, Arctic Ocean, Ob, Yenisei, LENA, wind forcing, Sea surface salinity, SMAP
Received: 07 Aug 2025; Accepted: 30 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Savin and Osadchiev. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Alexander Savin, savin.as@phystech.edu
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