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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)

 Environment:
 current issues: endangered marine species include walruses and whales;
 fragile ecosystem slow to change and slow to recover from disruptions
 or damage
 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
 icelocked from October to June; ships subject to superstructure icing
 from October to May
 international agreements: NA

 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 and lasts about 10 months

@Arctic Ocean:Government

 Digraph: XQ

Economy

 Overview: Economic activity is limited to the exploitation of natural
 resources, including petroleum, natural gas, fish, and seals.

@Arctic Ocean:Transportation

 Ports: Churchill (Canada), Murmansk (Russia), Prudhoe Bay (US)

 Note: sparse network of air, ocean, river, and land routes; the
 Northwest Passage (North America) and Northern Sea Route (Eurasia) are
 important seasonal waterways

@Arctic Ocean:Communications

 Telephone system:
 international: no submarine cables

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