<hdr>The World Factbook 1994: Arctic Ocean<nl>Geography</hdr><body>
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<item><hi format=bold>Location:</hi> body of water mostly north of the Arctic Circle
<item><hi format=bold>Area:</hi>
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<item>• <hi format=ital>total area:</hi> 14.056 million sq km
<item>• <hi format=ital>comparative area:</hi> 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)
<item>• <hi format=ital>note:</hi> 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
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<item><hi format=bold>Coastline:</hi> 45,389 km
<item><hi format=bold>International disputes:</hi> some maritime disputes (see littoral states); Svalbard is the focus of a maritime boundary dispute between Norway and Russia
<item><hi format=bold>Climate:</hi> 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
<item><hi format=bold>Terrain:</hi> 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
<item><hi format=bold>Natural resources:</hi> sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, oil and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals and whales)
<item><hi format=bold>Environment:</hi>
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<item>• <hi format=ital>current issues:</hi> endangered marine species include walruses and whales; fragile ecosystem slow to change and slow to recover from disruptions or damage
<item>• <hi format=ital>natural hazards:</hi> 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
<item>• <hi format=ital>international agreements:</hi> NA
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<item><hi format=bold>Note:</hi> major chokepoint is the southern Chukchi Sea (northern access to the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait); ships subject to superstructure icing from October to May; 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
