1.
Svalbard
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Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. Situated north of mainland Europe, it is midway between continental Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the range from 74° to 81° north latitude. The largest island is Spitsbergen, followed by Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya, administratively, the archipelago is not part of any Norwegian county, but forms an unincorporated area administered by a governor appointed by the Norwegian government. Since 2002, Svalbards main settlement, Longyearbyen, has had a local government. Other settlements include the Russian mining community of Barentsburg, the station of Ny-Ålesund. Svalbard is the northernmost settlement in the world with a permanent civilian population, other settlements are farther north, but are populated only by rotating groups of researchers. The islands were first taken into use as a base in the 17th and 18th centuries. Coal mining started at the beginning of the 20th century, the Svalbard Treaty of 1920 recognizes Norwegian sovereignty, and the 1925 Svalbard Act made Svalbard a full part of the Kingdom of Norway. They also established Svalbard as an economic zone and a demilitarized zone. The Norwegian Store Norske and the Russian Arktikugol remain the mining companies in place. Research and tourism have become important supplementary industries, with the University Centre in Svalbard, no roads connect the settlements, instead snowmobiles, aircraft and boats serve inter-community transport. Svalbard Airport, Longyear serves as the main gateway, the archipelago features an Arctic climate, although with significantly higher temperatures than other areas at the same latitude. The flora take advantage of the period of midnight sun to compensate for the polar night. Svalbard is a ground for many seabirds, and also features polar bears, reindeer, the Arctic fox. Seven national parks and twenty-three nature reserves cover two-thirds of the archipelago, protecting the largely untouched, yet fragile, approximately 60% of the archipelago is covered with glaciers, and the islands feature many mountains and fjords. Svalbard and Jan Mayen are collectively assigned the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code SJ, both areas are administered by Norway, though they are separated by a distance of over 500 nautical miles and have very different administrative structures. The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 defines Svalbard as all islands, islets and skerries from 74° to 81° north latitude, the land area is 61,022 km2, and dominated by the island of Spitsbergen, which constitutes more than half the archipelago, followed by Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya
2.
Arctic Ocean
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The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the worlds five major oceans. Alternatively, the Arctic Ocean can be seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean, located mostly in the Arctic north polar region in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere, the Arctic Ocean is almost completely surrounded by Eurasia and North America. It is partly covered by sea ice throughout the year and almost completely in winter, the summer shrinking of the ice has been quoted at 50%. The US National Snow and Ice Data Center uses satellite data to provide a record of Arctic sea ice cover. The Arctic may become ice free for the first time in human history within a few years or by 2040, for much of European history, the north polar regions remained largely unexplored and their geography conjectural. He was probably describing loose sea ice known today as growlers or bergy bits, his Thule was probably Norway, early cartographers were unsure whether to draw the region around the North Pole as land or water. The makers of navigational charts, more conservative than some of the more fanciful cartographers, tended to leave the region blank and this lack of knowledge of what lay north of the shifting barrier of ice gave rise to a number of conjectures. In England and other European nations, the myth of an Open Polar Sea was persistent, john Barrow, longtime Second Secretary of the British Admiralty, promoted exploration of the region from 1818 to 1845 in search of this. In the United States in the 1850s and 1860s, the explorers Elisha Kane, even quite late in the century, the eminent authority Matthew Fontaine Maury included a description of the Open Polar Sea in his textbook The Physical Geography of the Sea. Nevertheless, as all the explorers who travelled closer and closer to the reported, the polar ice cap is quite thick. Fridtjof Nansen was the first to make a crossing of the Arctic Ocean. The first surface crossing of the ocean was led by Wally Herbert in 1969, in a dog sled expedition from Alaska to Svalbard, with air support. The first nautical transit of the pole was made in 1958 by the submarine USS Nautilus. Since 1937, Soviet and Russian manned drifting ice stations have extensively monitored the Arctic Ocean, scientific settlements were established on the drift ice and carried thousands of kilometres by ice floes. In World War II, the European region of the Arctic Ocean was heavily contested, the Arctic Ocean occupies a roughly circular basin and covers an area of about 14,056,000 km2, almost the size of Antarctica. The coastline is 45,390 km long and it is surrounded by the land masses of Eurasia, North America, Greenland, and by several islands. It is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Bering Strait and to the Atlantic Ocean through the Greenland Sea, countries bordering the Arctic Ocean are, Russia, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and the United States. There are several ports and harbours around the Arctic Ocean In Alaska, in Canada, ships may anchor at Churchill in Manitoba, Nanisivik in Nunavut, Tuktoyaktuk or Inuvik in the Northwest territories
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Spitsbergen
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Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norway. Constituting the westernmost bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea, Spitsbergen covers an area of 39,044 km2, making it the largest island in Norway and the 36th-largest in the world. Other settlements, in addition to research outposts, are the Russian mining community of Barentsburg, the community of Ny-Ålesund. The island was first used as a base in the 17th and 18th centuries. Coal mining started at the end of the 19th century and several permanent communities were established, the Svalbard Treaty of 1920 recognized Norwegian sovereignty and established Svalbard as a free economic zone and a demilitarized zone. The Norwegian Store Norske and the Russian Arktikugol remain the mining companies. Research and tourism have become important supplementary industries, featuring among others the University Centre in Svalbard, no roads connect the settlements, instead snowmobiles, aircraft, and boats serve as local transport. Svalbard Airport, Longyear provides the point of entry and exit. The island has an Arctic climate, although significantly higher temperatures than other places at the same latitude. The flora benefits from the period of midnight sun, which compensates for the polar night. Svalbard is a ground for many seabirds, and also supports polar bears, reindeer. Six national parks protect the largely untouched, yet fragile environment, the island has many glaciers, mountains and fjords. Spitsbergen was named by its discoverer, the Dutch navigator Willem Barentsz, the name Spitsbergen, meaning “pointed mountains”, was at first applied to both the main island and the archipelago as a whole. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, English whalers referred to the islands as Greenland, the Spitzbergen spelling was used in English during the 19th century, for instance by Beechey, Laing, and the Royal Society. In 1906, the Arctic explorer Sir Martin Conway thought that the Spitzbergen spelling was incorrect, preferring Spitsbergen as he noted that the name was Dutch and this had little effect on British practice. In 1920, the international treaty determining the fate of the islands was entitled the Spitsbergen Treaty, the islands were generally referred to in the USA as Spitsbergen from that time, although the spelling Spitzbergen was also commonly used through the 20th century. Under Norwegian governance, the archipelago was named Svalbard in 1925, by the end of the 20th century, this usage had become common. The first confirmed and recorded sighting of the island by a European was by Willem Barentsz, the first good map with the east coast roughly indicated, appeared in 1623, printed by Willem Janszoon Blaeu
5.
Nordaustlandet
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Nordaustlandet is the second-largest island in the archipelago of Svalbard, Norway, with an area of 14,443 square kilometres. It lies north east of Spitsbergen, separated by Hinlopen Strait, much of Nordaustlandet lies under large ice caps, mainly Austfonna and Vestfonna, the remaining parts of the north being tundra inhabited by reindeer and walruses. The island is uninhabited and lies entirely within Nordaust-Svalbard Nature Reserve, english walrus hunters first sighted the south point of Nordaustlandet in 1617. This discovery was shown on the Muscovy Companys map, with the island labeled as Sir Thomas Smyths Iland and it also shows the North Cape. A Dutch map of 1710 was the first to show the island accurately, the rock types in Nordaustlandet stem from many different geological eras. The northern part consists of old crystalline basement, with such as marble, quartzite, mica schist, gneiss. East of Lady Franklinfjorden, on the peninsula Botniahalvøya and east of Duvefjorden there are volcanic rocks, in the east and south of Rijpfjorden the bedrock is made up of distinctive red-coloured granite. The Rijpfjord granite is medium grained, and contains two micas in addition to quartz, plagioclase and pink K-feldspar and it was emplaced in late Silurian times. Layered gabbro and dolerite of Silurian age occur at Kapp Laura in easternmost Nordaustlandet, on the island of Storøya, on Andréeneset, in the southern part of Kvitøya, gneisses and granites are the most common rock types. Four generations of rocks, gneiss, amphibolite, and grey and pink granite are present on Isispynten, south of Wahlenbergfjorden there is a large area with sedimentary rocks – mostly limestone and dolomite – from the Carboniferous and Permian. The youngest rocks in Nordaustlandet are Jurassic–Cretaceous dolerite dikes, which intrude the basement rocks on the island of Lågøya, unconsolidated deposits in Nordaustlandet consist of scree slopes, block fields and raised shore deposits. There are only small amounts of river deposits, the largest strandflats on Nordaustlandet can be found in the north-west, around Murchisonfjorden and on the island of Lågøya. Another large strandflat is Svartknausflya in the south, just west of the glacier of Bråsvellbreen, here, there are raised shore deposits up to 120 m. a. s. l. where ancient whale bones have been found 70 m above today’s sea level. Svartknausflya is also the largest moraine area in Nordaustlandet, it measures about 70 km2, glacial activity has shaped the landscape in Nordaustlandet through several ice ages. Gentle plateaus and rounded mountains are the most common sight, the tallest and steepest mountains, up to 600 m. a. s. l. can be found in the north. The eastern part of Nordaustlandet is covered in glaciers, and there are few areas without ice, between Vibebukta and Kapp Laura, the steep front of the Austfonna ice cap dominates. The glacier has retracted a bit during recent decades, revealing new areas of dry land on the few headlands that can be found around here, Austfonna, including Vegafonna, stretch across an area of 8,450 km2. Austfonna covers approximately 58% of Nordaustlandet, the largest areas with no ice are between Austfonna and Vestfonna and on the peninsulas in the north and north-west of Nordaustlandet
6.
Newtontoppen
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Newtontoppen is the largest and highest mountain in Svalbard, at 1,713 m. Its peak is the highest point on Svalbard and it is located at the north east corner on the island of Spitsbergen. The mountain is made of Silurian granite. The mountain was first ascended by Helge Backlund on 4 August 1900, the mountain was named after Isaac Newton in 1898. The surrounding mountains were named after other famous astronomers and mathematicians the same year, list of European ultra prominent peaks Media related to Newtontoppen at Wikimedia Commons
7.
Longyearbyen
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Longyearbyen (Norwegian pronunciation, is the largest settlement and the administrative centre of Svalbard, Norway. As of December 2015, the town had a population of 2,144, Longyearbyen is located in the Longyear Valley and on the shore of Adventfjorden, a bay of Isfjorden located on the west coast of Spitsbergen. Since 2002, Longyearbyen Community Council has had many of the same responsibilities of a municipality, including utilities, education, cultural facilities, fire brigade, roads, the town is the seat of the Governor of Svalbard. It is the worlds northernmost settlement of any kind with greater than 1,000 permanent residents, known as Longyear City until 1926, the town was established by and named after John Munro Longyear, whose Arctic Coal Company started coal mining operations in 1906. Operations were taken over by Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani in 1916, the town was almost completely destroyed by the German Kriegsmarine on 8 August 1943, but was rebuilt after the Second World War. Traditionally, Longyearbyen was a town, but most mining operations have moved to Sveagruva since the 1990s, while the town has seen a large increase in tourism. This has seen the arrival of such as the University Centre in Svalbard. The community is served by Svalbard Airport, Longyear and Svalbard Church, in 1896, Vesteraalens Dampskibsselskab started tours to Hotellneset. To accommodate tourists, they built a hotel, but it was not profitable and was closed after the 1897 season. However, two families overwintered in 1898–99 and Norway Post operated a post office at Hotellneset from 1897 to 1899, the first commercially viable coal on Svalbard was harvested by Søren Zakariassen in 1899. In 1901, Bergen-Spitsbergen Kullgrube-kompani started mining coal in Adventtoppen, the American industrialist John Munroe Longyear visited Spitsbergen as a tourist in 1901, where he met with an expedition prospecting for coal. He returned to Spitsbergen 1903, where he met Henrik B, næss in Adventfjorden, who gave him samples and information on coal fields. Along with his associate Frederick Ayer, Longyear bought the Norwegian claims on the west side of Adventfjorden, in 1906, the Boston-based Arctic Coal Company, with Ayer and Longyear as the main shareholders, started mining in Mine 1a, after having built docks and housing. The company had American administration, but mostly Norwegian labourers, Coal was transported the 1.2 kilometers from the mine to the port using an aerial tramway. In 1913, the company started work to open Mine 2a. Following financial difficulties during the First World War, the operations were bought by Store Norske. That year, SNSK built five new barracks, including one that was made into a hospital, SNSK introduced its own money with approval from Norges Bank, consisting entirely of banknotes at par with Norwegian krone. The American community buried their dead at Hotellneset, in 1918, eleven people were killed by the Spanish flu and a graveyard was established in Longyear City
8.
Moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer
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The instruments capture data in 36 spectral bands ranging in wavelength from 0.4 µm to 14.4 µm and at varying spatial resolutions. Together the instruments image the entire Earth every 1 to 2 days, MODIS has used the marine optical buoy for vicarious calibration. MODIS is succeeded by the VIIRS instrument on board the Suomi NPP satellite launched in 2011, the MODIS characterization support team is dedicated to the production of high-quality MODIS calibrated product which is a precursor to every geophysical science product. A detailed description of the MCST mission statement and other details can be found at MCST Web, with its low spatial resolution but high temporal resolution, MODIS data is useful to track changes in the landscape over time. The United States Forest Services Remote Sensing Applications Center analyzes MODIS imagery on a basis to provide information for the management. The following MODIS Level 3 datasets are available from NASA, as processed by the Collection 5 software, most of the data is available in the HDF-EOS format — a variant of Hierarchical Data Format prescribed for the data derived from Earth Observing System missions. Imaging spectroscopy NASA World Wind Official NASA site MODIS bands and spectral ranges MODIS Images of the Day MODIS Image of the Day – Google Gadget referring to MODIS image of the day
9.
NASA
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
10.
Archipelago
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An archipelago, sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster or collection of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi-, in Italian, possibly following a tradition of antiquity, the Archipelago was the proper name for the Aegean Sea and, later, usage shifted to refer to the Aegean Islands. It is now used to refer to any group or, sometimes. Archipelagos may be isolated in large amounts of water or neighbouring a large land mass. For example, Scotland has more than 700 islands surrounding its mainland which form an archipelago, archipelagos are often volcanic, forming along island arcs generated by subduction zones or hotspots, but may also be the result of erosion, deposition, and land elevation. Depending on their origin, islands forming archipelagos can be referred to as oceanic islands, continental fragments. Oceanic islands are mainly of volcanic origin, continental fragments correspond to land masses that have separated from a continental mass due to tectonic displacement. Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, New Zealand, Maldives, the Bahamas, Greece, Hawaii, the largest archipelagic state in the world by area and population is Indonesia. Island arc List of landforms List of archipelagos by number of islands List of archipelagos List of islands Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Archipelago
11.
Norway
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The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land, until 1814, the kingdom included the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It also included Isle of Man until 1266, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres and a population of 5,258,317. The country shares a long border with Sweden. Norway is bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east, Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. King Harald V of the Dano-German House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway, erna Solberg became Prime Minister in 2013, replacing Jens Stoltenberg. A constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the Parliament, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court, as determined by the 1814 Constitution, the kingdom is established as a merger of several petty kingdoms. By the traditional count from the year 872, the kingdom has existed continuously for 1,144 years, Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels, counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have an amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States, the country maintains a combination of market economy and a Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the countrys gross domestic product. On a per-capita basis, Norway is the worlds largest producer of oil, the country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World Bank and IMF lists. On the CIAs GDP per capita list which includes territories and some regions, from 2001 to 2006, and then again from 2009 to 2017, Norway had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. It also has the highest inequality-adjusted ranking, Norway ranks first on the World Happiness Report, the OECD Better Life Index, the Index of Public Integrity and the Democracy Index. Norway has two names, Noreg in Nynorsk and Norge in Bokmål. The name Norway comes from the Old English word Norðrveg mentioned in 880, meaning way or way leading to the north. In contrasting with suðrvegar southern way for Germany, and austrvegr eastern way for the Baltic, the Anglo-Saxon of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. This was the area of Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, and because of him
12.
Prins Karls Forland
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Prins Karls Forland or Forlandet, occasionally anglicized as Prince Charles Foreland, is an island off the west coast of Oscar II Land on Spitsbergen in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norway. The entire island and the sea area constitutes Forlandet National Park. The island was first seen by the Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz in 1596, in 1610, the English explorer Jonas Poole named it Black Point Isle. By 1612 the English whalers were referring to the island as Prince Charles Foreland, after King Jamess son, the Dutch called it Kijn Island, after a merchant, who, climbing a tall hill in 1612, fell and broke his neck. The English built a whaling station on the islands northern tip
13.
Wilhelm Island
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Wilhelm Island is an island in the Svalbard archipelago. It is situated northeast of Olav V Land on Spitsbergen, in Hinlopen Strait, the island was named after Wilhelm I
14.
Skerry
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A skerry is a small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for human habitation, it may simply be a rocky reef. A skerry can also be called a low sea stack, the term skerry is derived from the Old Norse sker, which means a rock in the sea. The Old Norse term sker was brought into the English language via the Scots language word spelled skerrie or skerry. In Scottish Gaelic, it appears as sgeir, e. g. Sula Sgeir, in Irish as sceir, in Welsh as sgeri, a skerry may have vegetative life such as moss and small, hardy grasses. They also, in areas of the world, are rested upon by animals such as seals or birds. Skerries are most commonly formed at the outlet of fjords where submerged glacially formed valleys at right angles to the coast join with other cross valleys in a complex array. By this channel one can travel through a protected passage almost the entire 1,600 km route from Stavanger to North Cape, the Blindleia is a skerry-protected waterway that starts near Kristiansand in southern Norway, and continues past Lillesand. The inside passage provides a route from Seattle, Washington to Skagway. Yet another such skerry-protected passage extends from the Straits of Magellan north for 800 km along the west coast of the South American continent, the Swedish coast along Bohuslän is likewise guarded by skerries. Even the east coast of Sweden, in the Baltic Sea, has many big skärgårdar, the southwestern coast of Finland also has a great many skerries, so many, in fact, that they form an archipelago. This area is experiencing post-glacial rebound that connects the islands as they break sea level, revealing till deposits. The skerries exist as small islands before uplift of adjacent terrain changes the classification of this landform into a tombolo. The most southerly skerries are perhaps the Skrap Skerries off South Georgia
15.
Climate of Svalbard
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The climate of Svalbard is principally a result of its latitude, which is between 74° and 81° north. Average July temperatures range from 3 and 7 °C, and in January temperatures are normally between −13 and −20 °C, the North Atlantic Current moderates Svalbards temperatures, particularly during winter, giving it up to 20 °C higher winter temperature than similar latitudes in continental Russia and Canada. This keeps the surrounding open and navigable most of the year. The interior fjord areas and valleys, sheltered by the mountains, have less temperature differences than the coast, on the south of Spitsbergen, the temperature is slightly higher than further north and west. During winter, the difference between south and north is typically 5 °C, while only about 3 °C in summer. Bear Island has average temperatures higher than the rest of the archipelago. In summer, particularly away from land, fog is common, with visibility under 1 kilometre registered 20% of the time in July and 1% of the time in January, at Hopen and Bear Island. Precipitation is frequent, but falls in small quantities, typically less than 400 millimetres in Western Spitsbergen, more rain falls in the uninhabited east side, where there can be more than 1,000 millimetres. The warmest temperature recorded was 21.3 °C in July 1979. Because of its history of occupation, Svalbard has one of the longest high-latitude meteorological records on earth. Computer models of global climate have long predicted enhanced greenhouse warming at such latitudes and it shows approximately 6 °C increase in 100 years, with 4 °C increase in the last 30 years. Traditionally weather had been forecast for Spitsbergen, which because of the needs of expeditions and this included forecasts for weather-exposed locations such as Hinlopen, Sørkapp and Danes Island. As most people live in the area of Nordenskiöld Land
16.
Empetrum nigrum
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It is also native in the Falkland Islands. It is usually dioecious, but there is a bisexual tetraploid subspecies, Empetrum nigrum ssp. hermaphroditum, evolutionary biologists have explained the striking geographic distribution of crowberries as a result of long-distance migratory birds dispersing seeds from one pole to the other. The metabolism and photosynthetic parameters of Empetrum can be altered in winter-warming experiments, the leaves are 3–6 mm long, arranged alternately along the stem. The fruits are drupes, 4–6 mm wide, usually black or purplish-black and their vitamin content is low, as is the concentration of volatile liquids, the lack of which makes them almost odorless. The acidity is lower than is typically encountered in forest berries, asiaticum Kuvaev – Korean crowberry E. nigrum can be grown in acidic soils in shady, moist areas. It can be grown for the fruit, as a ground cover, or as an ornamental plant in rock gardens. The fruit is high in anthocyanin pigment, and can be used to make a food dye. After waning popularity, E. nigrum is regaining its reputation as an edible fruit and it provides a steady crop and the gathering is relatively easy. The fruits make good pie and jam, in subarctic areas, E. nigrum has been a vital addition to the diet of the Inuit and the Sami. The Denaina harvest it for food, sometimes storing in quantity for winter, the fruits are usually collected in fall, but if not picked they may persist on the plant and can be picked in the spring. They keep well in a place without any special preparation. The Inuit and Native Americans mix them with other berries, especially blueberries, the leaves and stems are used in Denaina medicine for diarrhea and stomach problems, they are boiled or soaked in hot water, and the strained liquid drunk. In Denaina plantlore in the Outer and Upper Inlet area of Lake Clark, the roots are boiled and the eyes are washed with the strained, cooled tea, to which a little sugar may be added. In Labrador, where the name blackberry is used, the smoke of the stems and leaves is used to smoke fish, notably Salmon, Sea Trout
17.
Rubus chamaemorus
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Rubus chamaemorus is a rhizomatous herb native to cool temperate, alpine, arctic tundra and boreal forest, producing amber-colored edible fruit similar to the raspberry or blackberry. English common names include cloudberry, bakeapple, knotberry and knoutberry, aqpik or low-bush salmonberry, unlike most Rubus species, the cloudberry is dioecious, and fruit production by a female plant requires pollination from a male plant. The cloudberry grows to 10–25 cm high, the leaves alternate between having 5 and 7 soft, handlike lobes on straight, branchless stalks. After pollination, the flowers form raspberry-sized aggregate fruits which are more plentiful in wooded rather than sun-exposed habitats. Consisting of between 5 and 25 drupelets, each fruit is pale red, ripening into an amber color in early autumn. In Europe, they grow in the Nordic countries, Baltic states and they occur across northern Russia east towards the Pacific Ocean as far south as Japan. A single, fragile site exists in the Sperrin Mountains of Northern Ireland, in North America, cloudberries grow wild across Greenland, most of northern Canada, Alaska, northern Minnesota, New Hampshire, Maine and New York. Wide distribution occurs due to the excretion of the seeds by birds. Further distribution arises through its rhizomes which are up to 10 m long and grow about 10–15 cm below the surface, developing extensive. Cuttings of these taken in May or August are successful in producing a genetic clone of the parent plant, the cloudberry can withstand cold temperatures to as low as −40 °C, but is sensitive to salt and dry conditions. Wet meadows, and tundra, requiring acidic ground, cloudberry leaves are food for caterpillars of several Lepidoptera species. The moth Coleophora thulea has no other food plants. See also List of Lepidoptera that feed on Rubus, despite great demand as a delicacy the cloudberry is not widely cultivated and is primarily a wild plant. Wholesale prices vary based on the size of the yearly harvest. Since the middle of the 1990s, however, the species has formed part of a research project. The Norwegian government, in cooperation with Finnish, Swedish and Scottish counterparts, has pursued the aim of enabling commercial production of various wild berries. Beginning in 2002, selected cultivars have been available to farmers, notably Apolto, the cloudberry can be cultivated in Arctic areas where few other crops are possible, for example along the northern coast of Norway. The ripe fruits are golden-yellow, soft and juicy, and are rich in vitamin C, when eaten fresh, cloudberries have a distinctive tart taste
18.
Nautical mile
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A nautical mile is a unit of measurement defined as exactly 1852 meters. Historically, it was defined as one minute of latitude, which is equivalent to one sixtieth of a degree of latitude. Today it is an SI derived unit, being rounded to a number of meters. The derived unit of speed is the knot, defined as one mile per hour. The geographical mile is the length of one minute of longitude along the Equator, there is no internationally agreed symbol. M is used as the abbreviation for the mile by the International Hydrographic Organization and by the International Bureau of Weights. NM is used by the International Civil Aviation Organization, nm is used by the U. S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Nmi is used by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the word mile is from the Latin word for a thousand paces, mīlia. In 1617 the Dutch scientist Snell assessed the circumference of the Earth at 24,630 Roman miles, around that time British mathematician Edmund Gunter improved navigational tools including a new quadrant to determine latitude at sea. He reasoned that the lines of latitude could be used as the basis for a unit of measurement for distance, as one degree is 1/360 of a circle, one minute of arc is 1/21600 of a circle. These sexagesimal units originated in Babylonian astronomy, Gunter used Snells circumference to define a nautical mile as 6,080 feet, the length of one minute of arc at 48 degrees latitude.3 metres. Other countries measure the minute of arc at 45 degrees latitude, in 1929, the international nautical mile was defined by the First International Extraordinary Hydrographic Conference in Monaco as 1,852 meters. Imperial units and United States customary units used a definition of the nautical mile based on the Clarke Spheroid, the United States nautical mile was defined as 6,080.20 feet based in the Mendenhall Order foot of 1893. It was abandoned in favour of the nautical mile in 1954.181 meters. It was abandoned in 1970 and, legally, references to the unit are now converted to 1,853 meters. Conversion of units Orders of magnitude
19.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
20.
North Atlantic Current
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The North Atlantic Current, also known as North Atlantic Drift and North Atlantic Sea Movement, is a powerful warm western boundary current that extends the Gulf Stream north-eastward. The NAC originates from where the Gulf Stream turns north at the Southeast Newfoundland Rise, the NAC flows northward east of the Grand Banks, from 40°N to 51°N, before turning sharply east to cross the Atlantic. It transports more warm water to northern latitudes than any other boundary current. It reaches speeds of 2 knots near the North American coast, directed by topography, the NAC meanders heavily but, in contrast to the meanders of the Gulf Stream, the NAC meanders remain stable without breaking off into eddies. The colder parts of the Gulf Stream turn northward near the tail of the Grand Banks at 50°W where the Azores Current branches off to flow south of the Azores, from there the NAC flow north-eastward east of the Flemish Cap. Approaching the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, it turns eastward and becomes much broader. It then splits into a colder, north-eastern branch and an eastern branch. West of Continental Europe, it splits into two major branches, one branch goes southeast, later to become the Canary Current as it passes northwest Africa and turns southwest. The other major branch continues north along the coast of Northwestern Europe, other branches include the Irminger Current and the Norwegian Current. The North Atlantic Current, together with the Gulf Stream, have a reputation for having a considerable warming influence on European climate. The principal cause for differences in climate between North America and Europe is, however, winds rather than ocean currents. North Atlantic Oscillation Ocean gyre Physical oceanography Notes Sources The North Atlantic Current, elizabeth Rowe, Arthur J. Mariano, Edward H. Ryan, The Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies
21.
Mountain
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A mountain is a large landform that stretches above the surrounding land in a limited area, usually in the form of a peak. A mountain is steeper than a hill. Mountains are formed through tectonic forces or volcanism and these forces can locally raise the surface of the earth. Mountains erode slowly through the action of rivers, weather conditions, a few mountains are isolated summits, but most occur in huge mountain ranges. High elevations on mountains produce colder climates than at sea level and these colder climates strongly affect the ecosystems of mountains, different elevations have different plants and animals. Because of the less hospitable terrain and climate, mountains tend to be used less for agriculture and more for resource extraction and recreation, the highest mountain on Earth is Mount Everest in the Himalayas of Asia, whose summit is 8,850 m above mean sea level. The highest known mountain on any planet in the Solar System is Olympus Mons on Mars at 21,171 m, there is no universally accepted definition of a mountain. Elevation, volume, relief, steepness, spacing and continuity have been used as criteria for defining a mountain, whether a landform is called a mountain may depend on local usage. The highest point in San Francisco, California, is called Mount Davidson, notwithstanding its height of 300 m, similarly, Mount Scott outside Lawton, Oklahoma is only 251 m from its base to its highest point. Whittows Dictionary of Physical Geography states Some authorities regard eminences above 600 metres as mountains, in addition, some definitions also include a topographical prominence requirement, typically 100 or 500 feet. For a while, the US defined a mountain as being 1,000 feet or taller, any similar landform lower than this height was considered a hill. However, today, the United States Geological Survey concludes that these terms do not have technical definitions in the US, using these definitions, mountains cover 33% of Eurasia, 19% of South America, 24% of North America, and 14% of Africa. As a whole, 24% of the Earths land mass is mountainous, there are three main types of mountains, volcanic, fold, and block. All three types are formed from plate tectonics, when portions of the Earths crust move, crumple, compressional forces, isostatic uplift and intrusion of igneous matter forces surface rock upward, creating a landform higher than the surrounding features. The height of the feature makes it either a hill or, if higher and steeper, major mountains tend to occur in long linear arcs, indicating tectonic plate boundaries and activity. Volcanoes are formed when a plate is pushed below another plate, at a depth of around 100 km, melting occurs in rock above the slab, and forms magma that reaches the surface. When the magma reaches the surface, it builds a volcanic mountain. Examples of volcanoes include Mount Fuji in Japan and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, the magma does not have to reach the surface in order to create a mountain, magma that solidifies below ground can still form dome mountains, such as Navajo Mountain in the US
22.
Fjord
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Geologically, a fjord or fiord is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by glacial erosion. Norways coastline is estimated at 29,000 kilometres with 1,190 fjords, a fjord is formed when a glacier cuts a U-shaped valley by ice segregation and abrasion of the surrounding bedrock. Glacial melting is accompanied by the rebounding of Earths crust as the ice load, in some cases this rebound is faster than sea level rise. Most fjords are deeper than the adjacent sea, Sognefjord, Norway, fjords generally have a sill or shoal at their mouth caused by the previous glaciers reduced erosion rate and terminal moraine. In many cases this causes extreme currents and large saltwater rapids. Saltstraumen in Norway is often described as the worlds strongest tidal current and these characteristics distinguish fjords from rias, which are drowned valleys flooded by the rising sea. Drammensfjorden is cut almost in two by the Svelvik ridge, a moraine that during the ice cover was under sea level. During the winter there is usually little inflow of freshwater. Surface water and deeper water are mixed during winter because of the cooling of the surface. In the deep there is still fresh water from the summer with less density than the saltier water along the coast. Offshore wind, common in the areas during winter, sets up a current on the surface from the inner to the outer parts. This current on the surface in turn pulls dense salt water from the coast across the fjord threshold, during the summer season there is usually a large inflow of river water in the inner areas. This freshwater gets mixed with saltwater creating a layer of water with a slightly higher surface than the ocean which in turn sets up a current from the river mouths towards the ocean. This current is more salty towards the coast and right under the surface current there is a reverse current of saltier water from the coast. In the deeper parts of the fjord the cold water remaining from winter is still, fjords with a shallow threshold this deep water is not replaced every year and low oxygen concentration makes the deep water unsuitable for fish and animals. In the most extreme cases there is a constant barrier of freshwater on the surface, gaupnefjorden branch of Sognefjorden is strongly affected by freshwater as glacial river flow in. Velfjorden has little inflow of freshwater, as late as 2000, some coral reefs were discovered along the bottoms of the Norwegian fjords. These reefs were found in fjords from the north of Norway to the south, the marine life on the reefs is believed to be one of the most important reasons why the Norwegian coastline is such a generous fishing ground
23.
Coal
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Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure. Coal is composed primarily of carbon, along with quantities of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen. A fossil fuel, coal forms when plant matter is converted into peat, which in turn is converted into lignite, then sub-bituminous coal, after that bituminous coal. This involves biological and geological processes that take place over time, throughout history, coal has been used as an energy resource, primarily burned for the production of electricity and heat, and is also used for industrial purposes, such as refining metals. Coal is the largest source of energy for the generation of electricity worldwide, the extraction of coal, its use in energy production and its byproducts are all associated with environmental and health effects including climate change. Coal is extracted from the ground by coal mining, since 1983, the worlds top coal producer has been China. In 2015 China produced 3,747 million tonnes of coal –47. 7% of 7,861 million tonnes world coal production, in 2015 other large producers were United States, India, European Union and Australia. The word originally took the col in Old English, from Proto-Germanic *kula. In Old Turkic languages, kül is ash, cinders, öčür is quench, the compound charcoal in Turkic is öčür kül, literally quenched ashes, cinders, coals with elided anlaut ö- and inflection affixes -ülmüş. At various times in the geologic past, the Earth had dense forests in low-lying wetland areas, due to natural processes such as flooding, these forests were buried underneath soil. As more and more soil deposited over them, they were compressed, the temperature also rose as they sank deeper and deeper. As the process continued the plant matter was protected from biodegradation and oxidation and this trapped the carbon in immense peat bogs that were eventually covered and deeply buried by sediments. Under high pressure and high temperature, dead vegetation was slowly converted to coal, as coal contains mainly carbon, the conversion of dead vegetation into coal is called carbonization. The wide, shallow seas of the Carboniferous Period provided ideal conditions for coal formation, the exception is the coal gap in the Permian–Triassic extinction event, where coal is rare. Coal is known from Precambrian strata, which predate land plants — this coal is presumed to have originated from residues of algae, in its dehydrated form, peat is a highly effective absorbent for fuel and oil spills on land and water. It is also used as a conditioner for soil to make it able to retain. Lignite, or brown coal, is the lowest rank of coal, jet, a compact form of lignite, is sometimes polished and has been used as an ornamental stone since the Upper Palaeolithic
24.
Proglacial lake
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At the end of the last ice age approximately 10,000 years ago, large proglacial lakes were a widespread feature in the northern hemisphere. In some cases, such lakes gradually evaporated during the period after the Quaternary ice age. Good examples of structures can be found in the Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington. In Great Britain, Lake Lapworth, Lake Harrison and Lake Pickering were examples of proglacial lakes, the receding glaciers of the tropical Andes have formed a number of proglacial lakes, especially in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru, where 70% of all tropical glaciers are. Several such lakes have formed rapidly during the 20th century and these lakes may burst, creating a hazard for zones below. Many natural dams containing the water have been reinforced with safety dams. Some 34 such dams have been built in the Cordillera Blanca to contain proglacial lakes, several proglacial lakes have also formed in recent decades at the end of glaciers on the eastern side of New Zealands Southern Alps. The most accessible, Lake Tasman, hosts boat trips for tourists, list of prehistoric lakes Pluvial lake Proglacial lakes of Minnesota
25.
Bellsund
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Bellsund is a 20-kilometer long sound on the west coast of Spitsbergen, part of the Svalbard archipelago of Norway. It is separated from Van Mijenfjorden by the islands of Akseløya, Bellsund is located south of Nordenskiöld Land and north of Wedel Jarlsberg Land. Bellsund was first seen by William Barents in 1596 and he simply referred to it as Inwyck. In 1610 Jonas Poole explored Bellsund, giving the fjord the name it retains to this day and he named it after a nearby bell-shaped mountain. In 1612 the Dutchman Willem Cornelisz, Van Muyden was the first to attempt to catch whales here, but he wasnt very successful as he didnt have any Basque whalemen among his crew. In 1613, Basque, Dutch, and French whaling vessels resorted to Bellsund, in 1614 the Dutch agreed to give Bellsund to the English, but only for one season. In 1615 the Dutch built the first semi-permanent whaling station in Spitsbergen at the mouth of Schoonhoven and it was appropriated by the English the following year. In 1626 this station was damaged by York and Hull whalers, here they were found by the heavily armed flagship of the London whaling fleet, the Hercules, under admiral William Goodlad. A two-hour battle ensued, resulting in defeat for the Hull and York fleet, Hull continued to send whaling vessels to occupy this station for the next 25 years, while the English as a whole probably resorted to Bellsund at least until the late 1650s
26.
Polar bear
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The polar bear is a carnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is a bear, approximately the same size as the omnivorous Kodiak bear. A boar weighs around 350–700 kg, while a sow is about half that size, although most polar bears are born on land, they spend most of their time on the sea ice. Their scientific name means maritime bear and derives from this fact, Polar bears hunt their preferred food of seals from the edge of sea ice, often living off fat reserves when no sea ice is present. Because of expected habitat loss caused by change, the polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species. For decades, large-scale hunting raised international concern for the future of the species, for thousands of years, the polar bear has been a key figure in the material, spiritual, and cultural life of circumpolar peoples, and polar bears remain important in their cultures. Constantine John Phipps was the first to describe the polar bear as a species in 1774. He chose the scientific name Ursus maritimus, the Latin for maritime bear, the Inuit refer to the animal as nanook. The Yupik also refer to the bear as nanuuk in Siberian Yupik, the bear is umka in the Chukchi language. In Russian, it is usually called бе́лый медве́дь, though a word still in use is ошку́й. In the Norwegian-administered Svalbard archipelago, the bear is referred to as Isbjørn. The polar bear was considered to be in its own genus. The bear family, Ursidae, is thought to have split off from other carnivorans about 38 million years ago, the Ursinae subfamily originated approximately 4.2 million years ago. The oldest known polar bear fossil is a 130,000 to 110, 000-year-old jaw bone, fossils show that between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, the polar bears molar teeth changed significantly from those of the brown bear. Polar bears are thought to have diverged from a population of bears that became isolated during a period of glaciation in the Pleistocene or from the eastern part of Siberia. The evidence from DNA analysis is more complex, the mitochondrial DNA of the polar bear diverged from the brown bear, Ursus arctos, roughly 150,000 years ago. The mtDNA of extinct Irish brown bears is particularly close to polar bears, when the polar bear was originally documented, two subspecies were identified, Ursus maritimus maritimus by Constantine J. Phipps in 1774, and Ursus maritimus marinus by Peter Simon Pallas in 1776. This distinction has since been invalidated, one alleged fossil subspecies has been identified, Ursus maritimus tyrannus became extinct during the Pleistocene
27.
Water pollution
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Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies. This form of environmental degradation occurs when pollutants are directly or indirectly discharged into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds, Water pollution affects the entire biosphere – plants and organisms living in these bodies of water. In almost all cases the effect is damaging not only to individual species and population, Water pollution is a major global problem which requires ongoing evaluation and revision of water resource policy at all levels. It has been suggested that pollution is the leading worldwide cause of deaths and diseases. An estimated 580 people in India die of water related illness every day. About 90 percent of the water in the cities of China is polluted, as of 2007, half a billion Chinese had no access to safe drinking water. In addition to the problems of water pollution in developing countries. The head of Chinas national development agency said in 2007 that one quarter the length of Chinas seven main rivers were so poisoned the water harmed the skin. Natural phenomena such as volcanoes, algae blooms, storms, and earthquakes also cause changes in water quality. Although interrelated, surface water and groundwater have often studied and managed as separate resources. Surface water seeps through the soil and becomes groundwater, conversely, groundwater can also feed surface water sources. Sources of surface water pollution are generally grouped into two based on their origin. Point source water pollution refers to contaminants that enter a waterway from a single, identifiable source, examples of sources in this category include discharges from a sewage treatment plant, a factory, or a city storm drain. The U. S. Clean Water Act defines point source for regulatory enforcement purposes, the CWA definition of point source was amended in 1987 to include municipal storm sewer systems, as well as industrial storm water, such as from construction sites. Nonpoint source pollution refers to contamination that does not originate from a single discrete source. NPS pollution is often the cumulative effect of small amounts of contaminants gathered from a large area, a common example is the leaching out of nitrogen compounds from fertilized agricultural lands. Nutrient runoff in storm water from sheet flow over a field or a forest are also cited as examples of NPS pollution. Contaminated storm water washed off of parking lots, roads and highways, however, because this runoff is typically channeled into storm drain systems and discharged through pipes to local surface waters, it becomes a point source
28.
Puffin
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Puffins are any of three small species of alcids in the bird genus Fratercula with a brightly coloured beak during the breeding season. These are pelagic seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water and they breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands, nesting in crevices among rocks or in burrows in the soil. Two species, the tufted puffin and horned puffin, are found in the North Pacific Ocean, all puffin species have predominantly black or black and white plumage, a stocky build, and large beaks. They shed the colourful outer parts of their bills after the breeding season and their short wings are adapted for swimming with a flying technique under water. In the air, they beat their wings rapidly in swift flight, the rhinoceros auklet has sometimes been included in the genus Fratercula, and some authors place the tufted puffin in the genus Lunda. The puffins and the rhinoceros auklet are closely related, together composing the subfamily Fraterculini, the scientific name Fratercula is derived from Latin and means little brother, a reference to the black and white plumage, which resembles monastic robes. The English name puffin – puffed in the sense of swollen – was originally applied to the fatty, salted meat of young birds of the unrelated Manx shearwater, Puffin is an Anglo-Norman word for the cured carcasses of nestling Manx shearwaters. The oldest alcid fossil is Hydrotherikornis from Oregon dating to the Late Eocene while fossils of Aethia and Uria go back to the Late Miocene, molecular clocks have been used to suggest an origin in the Pacific in the Paleocene. Fossils from North Carolina were originally thought to have been of two Fratercula species, but were reassigned to one Fratercula, the tufted puffin. Another extinct species, Dows puffin was found on the Channel Islands of California until the Late Pleistocene or early Holocene. The Fraterculini are thought to have originated in the Pacific primarily because of their greater diversity there, there is one extant species in the Atlantic. The puffins are stocky, short-winged and short-tailed birds, with upper parts. The head has a cap, the face is mainly white. The bill appears large and colourful during the breeding season, the colourful outer part of the bill is shed after the breeding season, revealing a smaller and duller true bill beneath. Although the puffins are vocal at their colonies, they are silent at sea. They fly relatively high above the water, typically 10 m as compared with the 1.6 m of other auks, Puffins breed in colonies on coasts and islands, several current or former island breeding sites are referred to as Puffin Island. The male Atlantic puffin builds the nest and exhibits strong nest-site fidelity, both sexes of the horned puffin help to construct their nest. Horned puffin burrows are usually about 1 meter deep, ending in a chamber, the nesting substrate of the tufted and Atlantic puffins is soft soil, into which tunnels are dug, in contrast the nesting sites of horned puffins are rock crevices on cliffs
29.
Parasitic jaeger
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The parasitic jaeger, also known as the Arctic skua or parasitic skua, is a seabird in the skua family Stercorariidae. The word jaeger is derived from the German word Jäger, meaning hunter, the English skua comes from the Faroese name skúgvur for the great skua, with the island of Skúvoy known for its colony of that bird. The general Faroese term for skuas is kjógvi, the genus name Stercorarius is Latin and means of dung, the food disgorged by other birds when pursued by skuas was once thought to be excrement. The specific parasiticus is from Latin and means parasitic and this species breeds in the north of Eurasia and North America, with significant populations as far south as northern Scotland. It nests on dry tundra, higher fells and islands, laying up to four olive-brown eggs and it is usually silent except for mewing and wailing notes while on the breeding grounds. Like other skuas, it will fly at the head of a human or fox approaching its nest, although it cannot inflict serious damage, it is a frightening and painful experience. It is a migrant, wintering at sea in the tropics, in the British Isles, they breed in Shetland and Orkney, the Outer Hebrides, Sutherland, Caithness, and some islands in Argyll. This bird will feed on rodents, small birds and insects and it also robs gulls and terns of their catches. Identification is complicated by similarities to long-tailed jaeger and pomarine skua, small for a skua, the parasitic jaeger measures 41–48 cm in length, 107–125 cm in wingspan and weighs 300–650 g. The tail streamer of the breeding adult accounts for about 7 cm of their length, light-morph adults have a brown back, mainly white underparts and dark primary wing feathers with a white flash. The head and neck are yellowish-white with a cap and there is a pointed central tail projection. Dark-morph adults are brown, and intermediate-phase birds are dark with somewhat paler underparts, head. All morphs have the white wing flash, identification of juveniles is even more problematic, and it is difficult to separate parasitic jaegers from long-tailed jaegers. Parasitic jaegers are bulkier, shorter-winged, and less tern-like than long-tailed jaegers and they are usually warmer toned, with browner shades, rather than grey. However, they show the wide range of plumage variation. The typical call of these birds is a nasal mewing sound and their alarm call is a shorter sound. Arctic skua - Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds Arctic skua information and photos at the Handa Island Skua Project RSPB Birds by Name, Arctic skua Arctic skua media. Parasitic jaeger photo gallery at VIREO Interactive range map of Stercorarius parasiticus at IUCN Red List maps Audio recordings of Parasitic jaeger on Xeno-canto
30.
Kittiwake
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The kittiwakes are two closely related seabird species in the gull family Laridae, the black-legged kittiwake and the red-legged kittiwake. The name is derived from its call, a shrill kittee-wa-aaake, kitte-wa-aaake, the genus name Rissa is from the Icelandic name Rita for the black-legged kittiwake. The two species are very similar. They have a head and body, grey back, grey wings tipped solid black. Black-legged kittiwake adults are larger than red-legged kittiwakes. Other differences include a bill, larger eyes, a larger, rounder head. While most black-legged kittiwakes do, indeed, have legs, some have pinkish-grey to reddish legs. In contrast to the chicks of other gull species, kittiwake chicks are downy and white since they are under relatively little threat of predation. Unlike other gull chicks which wander around as soon as they can walk, juveniles take three years to reach maturity. When in winter plumage, both birds have a dark grey smudge behind the eye and a grey hind-neck collar, kittiwakes are coastal breeding birds ranging in the North Pacific, North Atlantic, and Arctic oceans. They form large, dense, noisy colonies during the reproductive period. They are the gull species that are exclusively cliff-nesting. The black-legged kittiwake is one of the most numerous of seabirds, lawrence through Greenland and the coast of Ireland down to Portugal, as well as in the high Arctic islands. In the winter, the range further south and out to sea. On these islands, it some of the same cliff habitat as the black-legged kittiwake
31.
Fulmar
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The fulmars are tubenosed seabirds of the family Procellariidae. The family consists of two extant species and two extinct fossils from the Miocene, Fulmars superficially resemble gulls, but are readily distinguished by their flight on stiff wings, and their tube noses. They breed on cliffs, laying an egg on a ledge of bare rock. Outside the breeding season, they are pelagic, feeding on fish, squid and they are long-lived for birds, living for up to 40 years. Historically, the northern fulmar lived on the Isle of St Kilda, the species has expanded its breeding range southwards to the coasts of England and northern France. As members of Procellaridae and then the order Procellariiformes, they share certain traits, first, they have nasal passages that attach to the upper bill called naricorns. The bills of Procellariiformes are unique in being split into seven and nine horny plates. Finally, they produce an oil made up of wax esters. This can be sprayed out of their mouths as a defence against predators and as a rich food source for chicks. It will mat the plumage of avian predators, which can lead to their death, Fulmars have a salt gland that is situated above the nasal passage and helps desalinate their bodies, due to the high amount of ocean water that they imbibe. It excretes a strong saline solution from their nose, two prehistoric species have been described from fossil bones found on the Pacific coast of California, Fulmarus miocaenus and Fulmarus hammeri from the Miocene. The genus name Fulmarus is derived from the Old Norse word fúll meaning foul, the two fulmars are closely related seabirds occupying the same niche in different oceans. The northern fulmar or just fulmar lives in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, whereas the southern fulmar, is, as its name implies and these birds look superficially like gulls, but are unrelated, and are in fact petrels. The northern species is grey and white with a bill,43 to 52 cm in length with a 102 to 112 cm wingspan. The southern form is a bird with dark wing tips,45 to 50 cm long. Both recent species breed on cliffs, laying a single white egg, in Britain, northern fulmars historically bred on St. Kilda. They spread into northern Scotland in the 19th century, and to the rest of the United Kingdom by 1930, Fulmars are highly pelagic outside the breeding season, like most tubenoses, feeding on fish, squid, shrimps or offal. The population increase has been notable in the British Isles
32.
Albert I Land
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Albert I Land is the land area of the northwestern part of Spitsbergen, Svalbard. It is bordered by Haakon VII Land to the southeast, to the northeast lies Raudfjorden and its inner branch, Klinckowströmfjorden, to the southeast Krossfjorden and its inner branch, Lilliehöökfjorden, to the west and north the Arctic Ocean. Albert I Land is the part of Spitsbergen that was first observed by Willem Barentz in 1596, currently uninhabited, several geographical names stem from the history of whaling in the area during the 17th century. The area is named after Albert I, Prince of Monaco, in honor of his exploration of Spitsbergen, the Hornemantoppen mountain is the highest peak in Albert I Land
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Oscar II Land
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Oscar II Land is the land area between Isfjorden and Kongsfjorden on Spitsbergen, Svalbard. The 30 km long glacier Sveabreen divides Oscar II Land from James I Land, the area is named after Oscar II of Sweden and Norway. Older name variants are Oscar IIs Land and Terre Oscar II, the Hofgaardtoppen mountain is the highest peak in Oscar II Land
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