Darryl Topley, age 10 of Willowdale, Ontario, Canada, for his question:

Where Is the Barents Sea?

Find the map of Norway and follow the ragged shoreline northward and around the eastward curve into the Arctic Ocean. The offshore waters are the Barents Sea. It is a section of the Arctic Ocean entirely within the Arctic Circle. A daring Dutch seaman named Willem Barents ventured there back in the 1500s, thus the sea is named in his honor. You would expect its polar waters to be ice bound    and indeed, most of the Barents Sea is choked with winter ice. But there are reasons why it is not as cold as it might be.

A finger of the warm Gulf Stream winds up into this region. Moreover, several sizeable islands to the north shield it from the open Arctic Ocean. This milder water provides a year round shipping lane, eastward along the coast to the Russian port of Murmansk. And the waters of the Barents Sea are rich fishing grounds, teeming with cod, herring and haddock.