ARCTIC OCEAN
@Arctic Ocean:Geography
Location: body of water mostly north of the Arctic Circle
Map references: Arctic Region
Area:
total area: 14.056 million sq km
comparative area: slightly more than 1.5 times the size of the US;
smallest of the world's four oceans (after Pacific Ocean, Atlantic
Ocean, and Indian Ocean)
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
Coastline: 45,389 km
International disputes: some maritime disputes (see littoral states); Svalbard is the focus of a maritime boundary dispute between Norway and Russia
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 ice pack is surrounded by open seas during the summer, but more than doubles in size during the winter and extends to the encircling land masses; 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 Lomonsov Ridge); maximum depth is 4,665 meters in the Fram Basin
Natural resources: sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, oil and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals and whales)