Nordic Seas intermediate water leaves through the Denmark Straight and the Iceland Ridge. The densest overflow waters leave through the Faroe Bank Channel. The water masses that encompass the Nordic Seas are always changing in response to the local variations that occur between atmosphere-ocean fluxes and convection of intermediate to deep water. The Nordic Seas are found between the North Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean, both having variable surface water conditions. The Nordic Seas are complex in the variety of water masses it contains: two surface waters, three intermediate waters, and three deep waters. Figure 3 shows the water mass circulations that
Kara Sea depths of the dumping sites range from 12 to 135 meters, and in the Novaya Zemlya Trough at depths of up to 380 meters. Liquid low-level wastes were released in the open Barents and Kara Seas. A subsequent appraisal by the International Atomic Energy Agency showed that releases are low and localized from the 16 naval reactors (reported by the IAEA as having come from seven submarines and the icebreaker "Lenin") which were dumped at five sites in the Kara Sea. Most of the dumped reactors had suffered an accident. The Soviet submarine K-27 was scuttled in Stepovogo Bay with