Arctic Ocean
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The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the world's five major oceans and the shallowest. Almost completely surrounded by Eurasia and North America, it is largely covered by sea ice throughout the year. Its temperature and salinity vary seasonally as the ice cover melts and freezes; its salinity is the lowest on average of the five major seas, due to low evaporation, heavy freshwater inflow from rivers and streams, and limited connection and outflow to surrounding oceanic waters with higher salinities. In summer the icepack shrinks about fifty percent. Endangered marine species include walruses and whales. The area has a fragile ecosystem which is slow to change and slow to recover from disruptions or damage. The Arctic Ocean has relatively little plant life except for phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are a crucial part of the ocean and there are massive amounts of them in the Arctic. Nutrients from rivers and the currents of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans provide food for the Arctic phytoplankton. |
Read more about this topic: Ocean Fisheries
Famous quotes containing the words arctic and/or ocean:
“Nature confounds her summer distinctions at this season. The heavens seem to be nearer the earth. The elements are less reserved and distinct. Water turns to ice, rain to snow. The day is but a Scandinavian night. The winter is an arctic summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We only seem to learn from Life that Life doesn’t matter so much as it seemed to do—it’s not so burningly important, after all, what happens. We crawl, like blinking sea-creatures, out of the Ocean onto a spur of rock, we creep over the promontory bewildered and dazzled and hurting ourselves, then we drop in the ocean on the other side: and the little transit doesn’t matter so much.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)