The Probert Encyclopaedia of Places of the World

ARCTIC

The Arctic is the north polar region. The climate is persistently cold and exhibits a relatively narrow annual temperature range; the winters are characterised by continuous darkness, cold and stable weather conditions, and clear skies; summers are characterised by continuous daylight, damp and foggy weather, and weak cyclones with rain or snow. The terrain at the central surface is covered by a perennial drifting polar icepack which averages about three meters in thickness, although pressure ridges may be three times that size; there is a 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. Natural resources are sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, oil and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals, whales).
Research Arctic