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Location: body of water mostly north of the Arctic Circle
Geographic coordinates: 90 00 N, 0 00 E
Map references: Arctic Region
Area:
total: 14.056 million sq km
note: includes Baffin Bay, Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi
Sea, East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait,
Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, Northwest Passage, and other tributary water
bodies
Area - comparative: slightly less than 1.5 times the size
of the US
Coastline: 45,389 km
Climate: polar climate characterized by persistent cold
and relatively narrow annual temperature ranges; winters characterized
by continuous darkness, cold and stable weather conditions, and
clear skies; summers characterized by continuous daylight, damp
and foggy weather, and weak cyclones with rain or snow
Terrain: central surface covered by a perennial drifting
polar icepack that averages about 3 meters in thickness, although
pressure ridges may be three times that size; clockwise drift pattern
in the Beaufort Gyral Stream, but nearly straight-line movement
from the New Siberian Islands (Russia) to Denmark Strait (between
Greenland and Iceland); the icepack is surrounded by open seas during
the summer, but more than doubles in size during the winter and
extends to the encircling landmasses; the ocean floor is about 50%
continental shelf (highest percentage of any ocean) with the remainder
a central basin interrupted by three submarine ridges (Alpha Cordillera,
Nansen Cordillera, and Lomonosov Ridge)
Elevation extremes:
lowest point: Fram Basin -4,665 m
highest point: sea level 0 m
Natural resources: sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits,
polymetallic nodules, oil and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals
and whales)
Natural hazards: ice islands occasionally break away from
northern Ellesmere Island; icebergs calved from glaciers in western
Greenland and extreme northeastern Canada; permafrost in islands;
virtually ice locked from October to June; ships subject to superstructure
icing from October to May
Environment - current issues: endangered marine species
include walruses and whales; fragile ecosystem slow to change and
slow to recover from disruptions or damage; thinning polar icepack
Geography - note: major chokepoint is the southern Chukchi
Sea (northern access to the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait);
strategic location between North America and Russia; shortest marine
link between the extremes of eastern and western Russia; floating
research stations operated by the US and Russia; maximum snow cover
in March or April about 20 to 50 centimeters over the frozen ocean;
snow cover lasts about 10 months
Background: A spring 2000 decision by the International
Hydrographic Organization delimited a fifth world ocean from the
southern portions of the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and Pacific
Ocean.
The new ocean extends from the coast of Antarctica north to 60 degrees
south latitude which coincides with the Antarctic Treaty Limit.
The Arctic Ocean remains the smallest of the world's five oceans
(after the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and Southern
Ocean).
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