ARCTIC OCEAN                                                                    
GEOGRAPHY                                                                       
Total area: 14,056,000 km2; includes Baffin Bay, Barents Sea,                   
Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay,        
Hudson Strait, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, and other tributary water bodies           
                                                                                
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)                                                               
                                                                                
Coastline: 45,389 km                                                            
                                                                                
Climate: 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 which 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 (USSR) 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,          
whales)                                                                         
                                                                                
Environment: endangered marine species include walruses and whales;             
ice islands occasionally break away from northern Ellesmere Island;             
icebergs calved from western Greenland and extreme northeastern Canada;         
maximum snow cover in March or April about 20 to 50 centimeters over the        
frozen ocean and lasts about 10 months; permafrost in islands; virtually        
icelocked from October to June; fragile ecosystem slow to change and slow       
to recover from disruptions or damage                                           
                                                                                
Note: 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 the USSR; shortest marine link between the extremes of        
eastern and western USSR; floating research stations operated by the US         
and USSR                                                                        
                                                                                
ECONOMY                                                                         
Overview: Economic activity is limited to the exploitation of                   
natural resources, including crude oil, natural gas, fishing, and               
sealing.                                                                        
                                                                                
COMMUNICATIONS                                                                  
Ports: Churchill (Canada), Murmansk (USSR), Prudhoe Bay (US)                    
                                                                                
Telecommunications: no submarine cables                                         
                                                                                
Note: sparse network of air, ocean, river, and land routes; the                 
Northwest Passage (North America) and Northern Sea Route (Asia) are             
important waterways                                                             
                                                                                
