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
Severnaya Zemlya During the days that followed Vilkitsky's expedition charted parts of the Laptev Sea coast of what they believed to be a single island. Barely six months later in early 1914, by order of the Secretary of the Imperial Navy, the new discovery was renamed "Emperor Nicholas II Land" (, "Zemlya Imperatora Nikolaya II"), after ruling Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. In 1926 the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR renamed the still not fully explored land "Severnaya Zemlya". In May 1928, an attempt was made by Umberto Nobile and his crew in the Airship Italia to overfly