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A decadal warming trend of Antarctic Bottom Water flowing through the Vema Channel is reanalyzed. Our data base consists of 94 high precision, full depth stations from 19 visits to the Vema Sill plus twelve stopovers at two additional key locations. Originally a long‐term temperature increase in the near‐bottom jet was noted from 1992 onward, after a period of rather constant abyssal temperatures since 1972. From today's perspective the apparent stagnant temperature level until 1991 can be interpreted as a period of feeble rising in comparison with a perspicuous warming trend of 2.8 mK yr−1 in the following 15 years. However, the clearly manifested temperature rise is superimposed with fluctuations. For the first time the available time series appears long enough to indicate an associated slight freshening of the bottom water. An attempt is made to trace the observed variability back to its source region in the Weddell Sea.

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The Kara Sea is a semi-enclosed sea located between the Siberian coast in the south, Novaya Zemlya in the west, and Severnaya Zemlya in the east (Figure 1). The water depth is less than 50 m at more than 40% of the Kara Sea; shallow areas are located mainly in the central and southeastern parts of the sea. This sea receives enormous freshwater discharge (∼1,500 km 3 annually) mainly from two large estuaries, namely, the Yenisei Gulf (630 km 3 from the Yenisei River) and the Gulf of Ob (530 km 3 from the Ob, Pur, and Taz rivers; Gordeev et al., 1996; Pavlov et al., 1996). Continental discharge to the Kara Sea has very large seasonal variability with a short freshet period in June-July that provides ∼50% of annual runoff and a long low discharge period in October-April caused by freezing of the inflowing rivers (Pavlov et al., 1996; Figure 1). Freshwater discharge forms the large freshened surface layer (FSL) in the Kara Sea which is among the largest freshwater reservoirs in the Arctic Ocean