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Maps
Arctic Circle Map
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The Arctic and Antarctic circles are parallels in the Northern and Southern hemispheres of the planet between which and the pole stretch the polar regions.The Earth’s polar circles are located at latitudes 66°33’39’’ (northern and southern). The polar circle situated in the Northern Hemisphere is called the Arctic Circle, and in the Southern Hemisphere, the Antarctic Circle.
The Arctic boundary is often drawn along the Arctic Circle (66°33’ N), but in places the Arctic conditions manifest themselves in more southern regions. The Arctic Circle is a boundary north of which the sun never rises above the horizon during the winter solstice (December 21) and never sets during the summer solstice (June 21). As we travel further north, the length of the polar day and polar night increases, reaching six months at the North Pole. During the long polar night, light comes only from the Moon and northern lights.
Laptev Sea Map
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The Laptev Sea is an Arctic sea. It is located between the Taimyr Peninsula and the Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago in the west and Novosibirsk Islands in the east. The sea was named after Russian Arctic explorers, cousins Dmitry and Khariton Laptev. The sea has an area of 672,000 sq km. Prevailing depths are 50 m, the maximum depth is 3,385 m, and the average depth is 540 m.
Greenland Ice Cap
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The Greenland ice sheet is the world’s second largest after the one in the Antarctic. Its area is 1.71 million sq km and it occupies 80% of Greenland’s territory, stretching for almost 2,400 km from north to south, and extending for 1,100 km in the north. The average ice depth is 2,135 m. The sheet’s thickness reaches up to 3,000 m. The age of the ice is estimated at about 110,000 years. The sheet lies at the island’s center, is separated by a strip of land from the sea, and in places its borders run along the coast. The Greenland ice sheet is not the island’s only glacier. There are other isolated glaciers and ice caps near the coast.
Arctic Topographic
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The Arctic is the Earth’s northern polar area and includes the Arctic Ocean and its seas: the Greenland Sea, the Barents Sea, the Kara Sea, the Laptev Sea, the East Siberian Sea, the Chukchi Sea, the Beaufort Sea, as well as Baffin Bay, the Foxe Basin, numerous straits and bays of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the northern parts of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans; the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Greenland, Spitsbergen, Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Severnaya Zemlya, Novosibirsk Islands and Wrangel Island, as well as the northern coasts of the continents of Eurasia and North America.
Major River Systems
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Apart from small rivers, the estuaries of major Eurasian and North American rivers, including the Pechora, Ob, Yenisei, Pyasina, Khatanga, Anabar, Lena, Yana, Indigirka, Kolyma, Colville and Mackenzie rivers, are located in the continental Arctic. As a rule, those rivers flow through broad valleys in lowland sections, frequently forming large estuaries. The rivers influence the permafrost, pushing it far back from the valleys and destroying all permafrost under riverbeds. They are also instrumental in promoting a milder climate in nearby areas. Scientific evidence highlighting the influence of river waters on the sea can be found several hundred kilometers away from estuaries. Notably, such waters influence the hydrological and ice regime of regional seas. Small insular rivers get their water from the snow or glaciers. Regional rivers freeze over for nine to ten months each year, and some of them freeze to the bottom. Continental rivers thaw every May-June and freeze in October. Insular rivers thaw in mid-July and freeze in early September.
Permafrost
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Permafrost, which is part of the cryolithozone characterized by the lack of regular thaws, covers an area of 35 million square kilometers in northern areas of Alaska, Canada, Europe, Asia and Arctic Ocean islands. Permafrost forms the upper layer of the Earth’s crust whose temperature has not risen above zero degrees Celsius in the past two to three years or in several millennia.
Vegetation Zones
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Although most Arctic areas lack trees, there are pine, fir and birch forests in some parts of northern Scandinavia and Russia (east of the White Sea and in the Pechora River basin). Typical tundra vegetation comprises various cereal crops, sedges, lichens, as well as tiny willows and birches. The ground receives substantial amounts of solar radiation during the short Arctic summers, facilitating plant growth and development. Soil surface temperatures may exceed air temperatures by 20 degrees Celsius.
Ocean Currents and Sea Ice Extent
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The Arctic Ocean, which covers an area of 14.1 million sq. km., is surrounded by landmass, except a wide waterway linking it with the North Atlantic and the narrow Bering Strait providing access to the North Pacific. The existence of sea ice is the main natural feature of this water body, which plays an important role in the history of Arctic exploration. During the peak of the season, the ice may cover the entire Arctic Ocean. The area under sea ice is reduced by half in late summer. The Arctic Ocean’s central sector is always covered by permanently moving ice floes. Passages in the sea ice may form any time of the year, while small pack ice formations usually drift on the ocean’s surface each summer. Most bays, straits and fjords are covered with fast shore ice, which thaws briefly in some places in late summer and early fall. Owing to some factors, some ocean sectors remain ice-free, and ice holes are formed there.
Sea Ice - Icebergs
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Icebergs (German for ice mountains) are huge chunks of ice floating freely in an ocean or sea. As a rule, icebergs break off from continental shelf glaciers. Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-1765) was the first to explain the origin of icebergs. About 90% of any iceberg remains submerged because ice density totals 920 kg per cu. m. and seawater density is 1,025 kg per cu. m.
Indigenous Population
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Many Arctic areas were settled over 10,000 years ago, followed by northern areas of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Greenland. The Arctic population comprises indigenous ethnic groups and newcomers who brought various cultural traditions with them. The most homogeneous ethnic group, primarily comprising the Inuit in Canada and Greenland, lives in the American Arctic. There are over 100,000 Inuit, including 1,500 in Siberia and south-western Alaska. Dene Indians live inland in northern Alaska and western Canada. The American Arctic and Eurasian populations primarily migrated from the west to the east, and from the south to the north along large river valleys, respectively.
The Caucasian population primarily lives in large cities south of the Arctic Circle, including Whitehorse (Yukon Territory), Yellowknife (Northwest Territories), Fairbanks and Anchorage (Alaska) and Nuuk/Godthab (Greenland). Although the Inuit population is dominant in northern Alaska, numerous newcomers work at local oil rigs.