body of water mostly north of the Arctic Circle

90 00 N, 0 00 E

Arctic Region

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

slightly less than 1.5 times the size of the US

45,389 km

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

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)

lowest point: Fram Basin -4,665 m
highest point: sea level 0 m

sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits,
polymetallic nodules, oil and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals
and whales)

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

endangered marine species include
walruses and whales; fragile ecosystem slow to change and slow to
recover from disruptions or damage; thinning polar icepack

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