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
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