Barents Sea the Norwegian Sea to the west, and the archipelagos of Svalbard to the northwest, Franz Josef Land to the northeast and Novaya Zemlya to the east. The islands of Novaya Zemlya, an extension of the northern end of the Ural Mountains, separate the Barents Sea from the Kara Sea. Despite being part of the Arctic Ocean, the Barents Sea has been characterized as "turning into the Atlantic" because of its status as "the Arctic warming hot spot." Hydrologic changes due to global warming have led to a reduction in sea ice and in stratification of the water column, which could
Novaya Zemlya detected by German U-boats and visually confirmed by German reconnaissance aircraft. On the night of July 4, the German battleship "Tirpitz" and the heavy cruisers "Admiral Scheer", "Lutzow", and "Hipper," closed on PQ-17 and sank four allied merchant ships. The British Admiralty responded by diverting the convoy’s escort vessels to the west to engage the German warships, and ordered the now-vulnerable merchant vessels to scatter. Seeking the hoped-for sanctuary of Matochkin Strait, several of the ships headed toward Novaya Zemlya at flank speed. S.A. Kerslake, a crew-member aboard the British Trawler "Northern Gem", recorded in his diary: …we were making