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.
Jan Mayen
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Jan Mayen is a Norwegian volcanic island situated in the North Arctic Ocean. It is 55 km long and 373 km2 in area, partly covered by glaciers and it has two parts, larger northeast Nord-Jan and smaller Sør-Jan, linked by a 2.5 km wide isthmus. It lies 600 km northeast of Iceland,500 km east of central Greenland and 1,000 km west of the North Cape, the island is mountainous, the highest summit being the Beerenberg volcano in the north. The isthmus is the location of the two largest lakes of the island, Sørlaguna, and Nordlaguna, a third lake is called Ullerenglaguna. Jan Mayen was formed by the Jan Mayen hotspot, although administered separately, Svalbard and Jan Mayen are collectively assigned the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code SJ. Jan Mayen Island has one exploitable natural resource, gravel, from the site at Trongskaret, other than this, economic activity is limited to providing services for employees of Norways radio communications and meteorological stations located on the island. Jan Mayen has one unpaved airstrip, Jan Mayensfield, which is about 1,585 m long, the 124.1 km coast has no ports or harbours, only offshore anchorages. There are important fishing resources, and the existence of Jan Mayen establishes a large Exclusive Economic Zone around it, a dispute between Norway and Denmark regarding the fishing exclusion zone between Jan Mayen and Greenland was settled in 1988 granting Denmark the greater area of sovereignty. Significant deposits of petroleum and natural gas are suspected by geologists to lie below Jan Mayens surrounding seafloors, Jan Mayen Island is an integral part of the Kingdom of Norway. Since 1995, Jan Mayen has been administered by the County Governor of the northern Norwegian county of Nordland to which it is closest. However, some authority over Jan Mayen has been assigned to the commander of the Norwegian Defence Logistics Organisation. The only inhabitants on the island are personnel working for the Norwegian Armed Forces, eighteen people spend the winter on the island, but the population may double during the summer, when heavy maintenance is performed. Personnel serve either six months or one year, and are exchanged twice a year in April, the main purpose of the military personnel is to operate a Loran-C base. The support crew, including mechanics, cooks, and a nurse, are among the military personnel, both the LORAN transmitter and the meteorological station are located a few kilometres away from the settlement Olonkinbyen, where all personnel live. Transport to the island is provided by C-130 Hercules military transport planes operated by the Royal Norwegian Air Force that land at Jan Mayensfields gravel runway, the planes fly in from Bodø Main Air Station eight times a year. Since the airport does not have any instrument landing capabilities, good visibility is required, for heavy goods, freight ships visit during the summer, but since there are no harbours, the ships must anchor. The island has no population, but is assigned the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code SJ. It uses the Internet country code top-level domain. no and data code JN, Jan Mayen has telephone and internet connection over satellite, using Norwegian telephone numbers
3.
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
4.
Nordland
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The county was formerly known as Nordlandene amt. The county administration is in Bodø, the remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen has been administered from Nordland since 1995. In the southern part is Vega, listed on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list, the county is divided into traditional districts. These are Helgeland in the south, Salten in the centre, in the northwest lie the archipelagoes of Lofoten and Vesterålen. Nordland is located along the northwestern coast of the Scandinavian peninsula in Northern Norway, due to the large distance to the densely populated parts of Europe, this is one of the least polluted areas in Europe. Nordland extends about 500 km from Nord-Trøndelag to Troms, the distance by road from Bindal in the far south of the county to Andenes on the northern tip is roughly 800 km. Nordland has a coastline, with many fjords. From south to north, the main fjords are Bindalsfjord, Vefsnfjord, Ranfjord, Saltfjord-Skjerstadfjord, Folda, Tysfjord, Ofotfjord and Andfjord, which is shared with Troms county. The best-known is perhaps the Vestfjorden, which is not really a fjord, the Raftsundet strait, with its famous branch Trollfjord, is the shortest waterway connecting Lofoten and Vesterålen. The continental shelf is very narrow west of Andenes, nowhere else in Norway is the ocean only a few kilometres from shore. Saltstraumen whirlpool is just southeast of Bodø, and Moskenstraumen is located in southern Lofoten, the southern part of Norways largest island, Hinnøya is in Nordland, as is the third largest island, Langøya. In the fjords, the brim is much less developed, There might be a more gradual slope, with hills, towards the mountains. There are often valleys at the head of fjords, usually with a river at the centre of the valley, Mo i Rana, Mosjøen and Rognan are situated in such valleys. Norways second largest glacier, Svartisen, the second largest lake, Røssvatnet, the largest river is Vefsna which forms the Laksforsen waterfall. The Saltfjellet mountain range forms a border between Helgeland and Salten, and is where the Arctic Circle cuts through the county. The interior of Nordland, towards the border with Sweden, is dominated by the Kjølen Mountains, the highest mountain in Nordland is Oksskolten in Okstindan range, the second highest is Suliskongen in Fauske, and the third is Storsteinfjellet in Narvik. Stetind in Tysfjord has been voted as Norways national mountain, There are many glaciers in the mountains, like Blåmannsisen, Okstindbreen, the Sulitjelma Glacier, and Frostisen -7 of the 15 largest glaciers in continental Norway are located in Nordland. This Cambrian - Silurian bedrock, much of it mica schist, is by far the largest area in Norway with soft bedrock rich in nutritions good for plant growth
5.
Arctic
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The Arctic is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Alaska, Canada, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, land within the Arctic region has seasonally varying snow and ice cover, with predominantly treeless permafrost-containing tundra. Arctic seas contain seasonal sea ice in many places, the Arctic region is a unique area among Earths ecosystems. For example, the cultures in the region and the Arctic indigenous peoples have adapted to its cold, in recent years, Arctic sea ice decline has been caused by global warming. Life in the Arctic includes organisms living in the ice, zooplankton and phytoplankton, fish and marine mammals, birds, land animals, plants, Arctic land is bordered by the subarctic. The word Arctic comes from the Greek word ἀρκτικός, near the Bear, northern, there are a number of definitions of what area is contained within the Arctic. The area can be defined as north of the Arctic Circle, the southern limit of the midnight sun. The Arctics climate is characterized by cold winters and cool summers and its precipitation mostly comes in the form of snow and is low, with most of the area receiving less than 50 cm. High winds often stir up snow, creating the illusion of continuous snowfall, average winter temperatures can be as low as −40 °C, and the coldest recorded temperature is approximately −68 °C. Coastal Arctic climates are moderated by oceanic influences, having generally warmer temperatures, the Arctic is affected by current global warming, leading to Arctic sea ice shrinkage, diminished ice in the Greenland ice sheet, and Arctic methane release as the permafrost thaws. Due to the migration of the planets isotherms, the Arctic region is currently shrinking. Perhaps the most spectacular result of Arctic shrinkage is sea ice loss, there is a large variance in predictions of Arctic sea ice loss, with models showing near-complete to complete loss in September from 2040 to some time well beyond 2100. About half of the models show near-complete to complete sea ice loss in September by the year 2100. Arctic life is characterized by adaptation to short growing seasons with long periods of sunlight, Arctic vegetation is composed of plants such as dwarf shrubs, graminoids, herbs, lichens and mosses, which all grow relatively close to the ground, forming tundra. As one moves northward, the amount of available for plant growth decreases considerably. Colder summer temperatures cause the size, abundance, productivity and variety of plants to decrease, trees cannot grow in the Arctic, but in its warmest parts, shrubs are common and can reach 2 m in height, sedges, mosses and lichens can form thick layers. In the coldest parts of the Arctic, much of the ground is bare, non-vascular plants such as lichens and mosses predominate, along with a few scattered grasses, herbivores on the tundra include the Arctic hare, lemming, muskox, and caribou. They are preyed on by the owl, Arctic fox, Grizzly bear
6.
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
7.
Barentsburg
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Barentsburg is the second-largest settlement on Svalbard, with about 500 inhabitants, almost entirely Russians and Ukrainians. It is the site of the Barentsburg Pomor Museum, named after Dutch explorer Willem Barents, the town is a mining town, with coal mining conducted by the Soviet company Arktikugol since 1932. The population has declined over the decades, in its heyday, although Svalbard is under Norwegian sovereignty, the unique Svalbard Treaty of 1920 allows citizens of signatory countries equal rights to exploit natural resources. Russia, along with Norway, maintains mining operations on Svalbard as a result, Russia maintains a consulate in Barentsburg, the northernmost diplomatic mission of any kind in the world. Barentsburg still has a Norwegian mail address and Norwegian phone numbers, Barentsburg started as a Dutch mining town in the 1920s. In 1932 the Dutch sold their concession to the Soviet Union, since 1932 the Russian state-owned Arktikugol Trust has been operating on Svalbard. The main economic activity is coal mining by the Arktikugol company, the coal is usually exported to Northern European buyers. The town relies entirely on mainland Russia for food and coinage, there have been instances in which not enough food was sent, and aid packages were sent from Longyearbyen. Tourism is now being developed, but does not yet generate enough income to revive the town, the distance from Longyearbyen to Barentsburg is about 55 km but there are no roads connecting the two settlements. Most contact between the two is by boat, snowmobile, or helicopter, there is a heliport with a road connection at Heerodden,4 km north of Barentsburg. Tourists usually arrive via a 2-3-hour boat trip from Longyearbyen, the coal is freighted by ship. The port is located in the middle of Barentsburg, the Barentsburg Pomor Museum presents Pomor culture, Arctic flora and fauna, and archeological objects preserved in the permafrost. It is open when the daily, summer-only boat from Longyear arrives, there is an athletic complex, including a swimming pool with heated seawater. Every summer, several dozen geophysicists, geologists, archeologists, biologists, glaciologists, geographers, etc. from Russia, there is also a year-round meteorological observatory and the northernmost cosmic rays station. Adrian Briscoe completed Dream Town, a film about Barentsburg. From documentary to fiction, the film concludes with a series of resolutions centered on the themes of love, dreams and escapism. Co-written by novelist Ray Robinson, Dream Town won the Best Picture award at both the Chicago Underground Film Festival and the Derby Film Festival, UK in the spring of 2014, coal mining resumed at the end of 2010
8.
Schengen Area
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The Schengen Area is an area comprising 26 European states that have officially abolished passport and any other type of border control at their mutual borders. The area mostly functions as a country for international travel purposes. The area is named after the Schengen Agreement, States in the Schengen Area have eliminated border controls with other Schengen members and strengthened border controls with non-Schengen countries. Twenty-two of the twenty-eight European Union member states participate in the Schengen Area, three European microstates – Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City – can be considered de facto participants. The Schengen Area has a population of over 400 million people, as a result of the migration crisis ongoing as of early 2017, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden temporarily imposed controls on some or all of their borders with other Schengen states. Following the November 2015 Paris attacks and subsequent attacks in France, France declared a state of emergency, the Schengen Agreement was signed on 14 June 1985 by five of the ten EEC member states in the town of Schengen, Luxembourg. The Schengen Area was established separately from the European Economic Community, in 1990 the Agreement was supplemented by the Schengen Convention, which proposed the abolition of internal border controls and a common visa policy. The Agreements and the rules adopted under them were separate from the EC structures. As more EU member states signed the Schengen Agreement, consensus was reached on absorbing it into the procedures of the EU, the Agreement and its related conventions were incorporated into the mainstream of European Union law by the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997, which came into effect in 1999. A consequence of the Agreement being part of European law is that any amendment and regulation is made within its processes, in which the non-EU members are not participants. The UK and Ireland have maintained a Common Travel Area since 1923, but beyond this the UK could not accept abolishing border controls, and were given a full opt-out from the area. While not signing the Schengen Treaty, Ireland has always looked more favourably on joining but has not done so to maintain the CTA, the Nordic members required Norway and Iceland to be included, which was accepted, and so a consensus could be reached. The Schengen Area consists of 26 states, including four which are not members of the European Union, two of the non-EU members, Iceland and Norway, are part of the Nordic Passport Union and are officially classified as states associated with the Schengen activities of the EU. Switzerland was subsequently allowed to participate in the manner in 2008. Liechtenstein joined the Schengen Area on 19 December 2011, de facto, the Schengen Area also includes three European micro-states – Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican City – that maintain open or semi-open borders with other Schengen member countries. Two EU members – Ireland and the United Kingdom – negotiated opt-outs from Schengen, the remaining four EU member states – Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus and Romania – are obliged to eventually join the Schengen Area. However, before implementing the Schengen rules, each state must have its preparedness assessed in four areas, air borders, visas, police cooperation. This evaluation process involves a questionnaire and visits by EU experts to selected institutions, the only land borders with border controls between EU/EEA members, are those of Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania, and the one at Gibraltar and those at the Channel Tunnel
9.
Norwegian Sea
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The Norwegian Sea is a marginal sea in the North Atlantic Ocean, northwest of Norway. It is located between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea and adjoins the North Atlantic Ocean to the west, in the southwest, it is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a submarine ridge running between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. To the North, the Jan Mayen Ridge separates it from the Greenland Sea, unlike many other seas, most of the bottom of the Norwegian Sea is not part of a continental shelf and therefore lies at a great depth of about two kilometres on average. Rich deposits of oil and natural gas are found under the sea bottom and are being explored commercially, the coastal zones are rich in fish that visit the Norwegian Sea from the North Atlantic or from the Barents Sea for spawning. The warm North Atlantic Current ensures relatively stable and high temperatures, so that unlike the Arctic seas. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Norwegian Sea as follows, a line joining the southernmost point of West Spitzbergen to North Cape of Bear Island, through this island to Cape Bull and thence on to North Cape in Norway. The West coast of Norway between North Cape and Cape Stadt, from a point on the West coast of Norway in Latitude 61°00 North along this parallel to Longitude 0°53 West thence a line to the NE extreme of Fuglö and on to the East extreme of Gerpir in Iceland. The Southeastern limit of Greenland Sea, the Norwegian Sea was formed about 250 million years ago, when the Eurasian plate of Norway and the North American Plate, including Greenland, started to move apart. The existing narrow shelf sea between Norway and Greenland began to widen and deepen, the present continental slope in the Norwegian Sea marks the border between Norway and Greenland as it stood approximately 250 million years ago. In the north it extends east from Svalbard and on the southwest between Britain and the Faroes and this continental slope contains rich fishing grounds and numerous coral reefs. Settling of the shelf after the separation of the continents has resulted in landslides, the coasts of the Norwegian Sea were shaped during the last Ice Age. Large glaciers several kilometres high pushed into the land, forming fjords, removing the crust into the sea and this is particularly clear off the Norwegian coast along Helgeland and north to the Lofoten Islands. The Norwegian continental shelf is between 40 and 200 kilometres wide, and has a different shape from the shelves in the North Sea and it contains numerous trenches and irregular peaks, which usually have an amplitude of less than 100 metres, but can reach up to 400 metres. They are covered with a mixture of gravel, sand, and mud, deeper into the sea, there are two deep basins separated by a low ridge between the Vøring Plateau and Jan Mayen island. The southern basin is larger and deeper, with areas between 3,500 and 4,000 metres deep. The northern basin is shallower at 3, 200–3,300 metres, submarine thresholds and continental slopes mark the borders of these basins with the adjacent seas. To the south lies the European continental shelf and the North Sea, to the west, the Scotland-Greenland Ridge separates the Norwegian Sea from the North Atlantic. This ridge is on average only 500 metres deep, only in a few reaching the depth of 850 metres
10.
Greenland Sea
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The Greenland Sea is often defined as part of the Arctic Ocean, sometimes as part of the Atlantic Ocean. However, definitions of the Arctic Ocean and its seas tend to be imprecise or arbitrary, in general usage the term Arctic Ocean would exclude the Greenland Sea. In oceanographic studies the Greenland Sea is considered part of the Nordic Seas, the Nordic Seas are the main connection between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans and, as such, could be of great significance in a possible shutdown of thermohaline circulation. In oceanography the Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas are often referred to collectively as the Arctic Mediterranean Sea, the sea has Arctic climate with regular northern winds and temperatures rarely rising above 0 °C. The West Ice forms in winter in the Greenland Sea, north of Iceland and it is a major breeding ground of harp seal and hooded seal that has been used for seal hunting for more than 200 years. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Greenland Sea as follows, a line joining the Northernmost point of Spitzbergen to the Northernmost point of Greenland. The West coast of West Spitzbergen, a line joining Straumnes to Cape Nansen in Greenland. The East and Northeast coast of Greenland between Cape Nansen and the northernmost point, while the sea is known for millennia, its first scientific investigations were carried out in 1876–1878 within the Norwegian North-Atlantic Expedition. Since then, many countries, mostly Norway, Iceland and Russia have sent scientific expeditions to the area, the complex water current system was detailed in 1909 by the Fridtjof Nansen. The Greenland Sea was a hunting ground for the whaling industry for 300 years, until 1911. At that point, the formerly rich whale population here, was so depleted that the industry was no longer profitable, the remaining whales of the Greenland Sea has been protected ever since, but the populations had not shown any proof of significant regeneration. In the last 20 years, polar biologists reports an increase in the local bowhead whale population and in 2015, arctic scientists discovered a surprising abundance of them in a small area. These results may be interpreted as an sign of a beginning recovery for this particular species. The inuit hunted whales on a scale in the Greenland Sea since the fifteenth century. The Greenland Sea is bounded to the west by the island of Greenland, to the southeast, behind the Jan Mayen island lies the vast expanse of the Norwegian Sea, of which Greenland Sea may be considered an extension. Across the Fram Strait to the northeast, the sea is delimited by the Svalbard archipelago, the bottom of the Greenland Sea is a depression bounded to the south by the underwater Greenland-Iceland ridge and to the east by the Mohns Ridge and Knipovich Ridge. To the west, the bottom rises first slowly, but then rapidly toward the wide Greenland coastal strip, silts fill the submarine hollows and gorges, silty sands, gravel, boulders, and other products of erosion coat the shelves and ridges. Of those, only the Svalbard islands are inhabited, and Jan Mayen has only temporal military staff, several radio and meteorological stations operate on the island nowadays
11.
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
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