The smallest representative of the Earth's oceans is the Arctic. It covered the territory of the North Pole and borders continents from different directions. The average depth of the Arctic Ocean is 1225 meters. He is the shallowest ocean of all.
Position
A reservoir of cold water and ice that does not extend beyond the boundaries of the Arctic Circle is washing the shores of the continents of the hemisphere and Greenland from the north. The average depth of the Arctic Ocean is rather small, but the waters in it are the coldest. The surface area is 14 750 000 square kilometers, the volume is 18 070 000 cubic kilometers. The average depth of the Arctic Ocean in meters is 1225, while the deepest point is 5527 meters below the surface. This point belongs to the basin of the Greenland Sea.
Bottom relief
Scientists have learned about what the average and greatest depths of the Arctic Ocean are long ago, but almost nothing was known about the bottom topography until the war of 1939-1945. Over the past decades, a lot of diverse information has been gathered through expeditions to submarines and icebreakers. In the bottom structure, a central basin is distinguished, around which marginal seas are located.
Almost half of the ocean area is occupied by the shelf. In Russian territory, it stretched to 1300 km from the ground. Off the European coast, the shelf is much deeper and heavily indented. There are suggestions that this happened under the influence of the Pleistocene glaciers. The center is an oval basin of the greatest depth, which is divided by the Lomonosov Ridge, discovered and partially studied in the postwar years. Between the Eurasian shelf and the specified range lies a basin, the depth of which is from 4 to 6 km. On the other side of the ridge lies a second basin, the depth of which is 3400 m.
The Arctic Ocean is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Bering Strait; the border with the Atlantic runs through the Norwegian Sea. The structure of the bottom is due to the wide development of the shelf and underwater continental area. This explains the extremely low average depth of the Arctic Ocean - more than 40% of the total area no deeper than 200 m. The rest of the shelf.
Natural conditions
The climate of the ocean is determined by its position. The severity of the climate is compounded by a gigantic amount of ice - in the central part of the basin, a thick layer never melts.
Year-round cyclones develop over the Arctic. The anticyclone is active mainly in winter, while in summer it moves to the junction with the Pacific Ocean. Cyclones run amok in summer. Thanks to such changes, the course of atmospheric pressure is clearly expressed above the polar ice. Winter lasts from November to April, summer from June to August. In addition to cyclones originating over the ocean, cyclones that come from outside often walk here.
The regime of winds at the pole is heterogeneous, but the speed above 15 m / s is practically not found. Winds over the Arctic Ocean mainly have a speed of 3-7 m / s.
The average temperature in winter is from +4 to -40, in summer - from 0 to +10 degrees Celsius.
Low cloud cover has a certain frequency throughout the year. In summer, the probability of low clouds reaching 90-95%, in winter - 40-50%. A clear sky is more characteristic of the cold season. In summer, fogs are frequent, sometimes they do not rise up to a week.
Precipitation characteristic of this area is snow. Rains practically do not happen, and if they do, then more often with snow. 80-250 mm falls annually in the Arctic basin, a little more in the north of Europe. The thickness of the snow is small, unevenly distributed. In the warmer months, snow actively melts, sometimes it leaves completely.
In the central region, the climate is milder than on the outskirts (close to the shores of the Asian part of Eurasia and North America). The warm currents of the Atlantic penetrate into the water area, which form the atmosphere over the entire water area of the ocean.
Flora and fauna
The average depth of the Arctic Ocean is sufficient for the appearance of a large number of different organisms in its thickness. In the Atlantic part you can find a diverse number of fish, such as cod, sea bass, herring, haddock, and pollock. Whales live in the ocean, mainly Greenland and striped.
In most of the Arctic there are no trees, although spruce, pine and even birch trees grow in northern Russia and the Scandinavian Peninsula. The vegetation of the tundra is represented by cereals, lichens, several varieties of birches, sedge, dwarf willows. Summer is short, but in winter a huge stream of solar radiation arrives, stimulating the active growth and development of flora. The soil can warm up in the upper layers to 20 degrees, increasing the temperature of the lower layers of air.
A feature of the Arctic fauna is the limited species with an abundance of representatives of each of them. The Arctic is a native home for polar bears, Arctic foxes, polar owls, hares, crows, tundra partridges and lemmings. Herds of walruses, narwhals, seals and beluga whines lap in the seas.
Not only the average and maximum depths of the Arctic Ocean determines the number of animals and plants, towards the center of the ocean the density and abundance of species inhabiting the territory decreases.