Arctic Ocean Facts Area 5,440,000 square miles Major Topo-graphic Feature Lomonosov Ridge (1000 miles long) Largest Inflow Norwegian Current Largest Outflow East Greenland Current Major Ports Murmansk, Arkhangelsk Flow contr. from rivers 2% Greatest Depth About 15,000 feet Did you know? The Arctic Ocean, located entirely in the North Pole region, is the smallest of the world's oceans. A prominent feature of the Arctic Ocean is the oceanic polar front, which separates the cold, less saline surface water of the Arctic Ocean from saltier, warmer waters from oceans farther south. An underwater ocean ridge, the Lomonosov Ridge, divides the Arctic Ocean into the Eurasian Basin and the North American Basin. The topography of the ocean bottom is marked by fault-block ridges, plains ocean deeps, and basins. Since the end of the Cold War, US nuclear submarines have been used on oceanographic research cruises in the Central Arctic Ocean.

Oceanography
in the Arctic

Nearly landlocked, the Arctic ocean is surrounded by the land masses of Europe, Asia, North America, and Greenland and a number of islands, as well as by the Barents, Beaufort, Chukchi, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Lincoln, Wandel, Greenland, and Norwegian seas. It is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Bering Strait and to the Atlantic Ocean through the Greenland Sea.

The Arctic plays a fundamental role in the circulation of ocean currents worldwide. When warm, salty North Atlantic water reaches the cold Arctic around Greenland and Iceland and in the Labrador Sea, it becomes denser as it cools, and therefore sinks to deeper layers of the ocean. This deep water cycling process occurs over a huge area each winter and is responsible for the slow movement of millions of cubic miles of water along the Atlantic seafloor.

Oceanographic research encompasses a variety of disciplines. Recent study topics include: the formation, movement, and mixing of Arctic water masses; biological and physical characteristics of marine ecosystems; low temperature life processes; the formation and dynamics of the Arctic sea-ice cover; the exchange of salt and heat with the Atlantic Ocean and the Bering Sea; and the role of the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas in global climate. As with all natural science today, computer modeling has become a key research tool for studying the Arctic Ocean systems and predicting future environmental change.

With the end of the Cold War, scientists from the US and Russia have collaborated on several underwater research projects. The extraordinary range and mobility of the nuclear submarine, as well as its ability to remain submerged for months, have made it an ideal platform for extensive sampling of the Arctic Ocean. A recent cross-basin survey from Point Barrow, Alaska to a position north of Franz Josef land yielded valuable observations on physical oceanographic features, under-ice topography and bathymetry.

Polar icebreakers with oceanographers aboard have probed farther into the Arctic Ocean than ever before. Instruments have been lowered through 14,000 feet to obtain water samples at all depths of the ocean. Advances in chemistry have allowed the detection of very minute concentrations of various natural and man-made substances which can be used to trace the movement of water masses. Knowledge of these water masses and their residence times are key to determining how sensitive the Arctic Ocean is to environmental change.