63 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
63 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
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ARCTIC OCEAN
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GEOGRAPHY
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Total area: 14,056,000 km2; includes Baffin Bay, Barents Sea,
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Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay,
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Hudson Strait, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, and other tributary water bodies
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Comparative area: slightly more than 1.5 times the size of the US;
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smallest of the world's four oceans (after Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean,
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and Indian Ocean)
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Coastline: 45,389 km
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Climate: persistent cold and relatively narrow annual temperature
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ranges; winters characterized by continuous darkness, cold and stable
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weather conditions, and clear skies; summers characterized by continuous
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daylight, damp and foggy weather, and weak cyclones with rain or snow
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Terrain: central surface covered by a perennial drifting polar
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icepack which averages about 3 meters in thickness, although pressure
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ridges may be three times that size; clockwise drift pattern in the
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Beaufort Gyral Stream, but nearly straight line movement from the New
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Siberian Islands (USSR) to Denmark Strait (between Greenland and
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Iceland); the ice pack is surrounded by open seas during the summer, but
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more than doubles in size during the winter and extends to the encircling
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land masses; the ocean floor is about 50% continental shelf (highest
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percentage of any ocean) with the remainder a central basin interrupted
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by three submarine ridges (Alpha Cordillera, Nansen Cordillera, and
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Lomonsov Ridge); maximum depth is 4,665 meters in the Fram Basin
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Natural resources: sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits,
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polymetallic nodules, oil and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals,
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whales)
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Environment: endangered marine species include walruses and whales;
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ice islands occasionally break away from northern Ellesmere Island;
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icebergs calved from western Greenland and extreme northeastern Canada;
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maximum snow cover in March or April about 20 to 50 centimeters over the
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frozen ocean and lasts about 10 months; permafrost in islands; virtually
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icelocked from October to June; fragile ecosystem slow to change and slow
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to recover from disruptions or damage
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Note: major chokepoint is the southern Chukchi Sea (northern
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access to the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait); ships subject to
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superstructure icing from October to May; strategic location between
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North America and the USSR; shortest marine link between the extremes of
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eastern and western USSR; floating research stations operated by the US
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and USSR
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ECONOMY
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Overview: Economic activity is limited to the exploitation of
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natural resources, including crude oil, natural gas, fishing, and
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sealing.
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COMMUNICATIONS
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Ports: Churchill (Canada), Murmansk (USSR), Prudhoe Bay (US)
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Telecommunications: no submarine cables
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Note: sparse network of air, ocean, river, and land routes; the
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Northwest Passage (North America) and Northern Sea Route (Asia) are
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important waterways
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