The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's oceans, centered on the North Pole and largely enclosed by North America, Greenland, Europe and Asia, and forms an ecosystem built around its seasonal sea ice rather than in spite of it. For much of the year, floating sea ice covers most of the ocean's surface, and algae growing on and beneath the ice form the base of a food web that runs upward through zooplankton to fish, seals, narwhals, beluga whales and, at the top, polar bears, which depend on the ice itself as a platform for hunting seals. The ecosystem experiences extreme seasonal swings in light, with months of continuous winter darkness followed by months of continuous summer daylight, a rhythm every part of the food web is adapted to. The Arctic Ocean is also warming and losing its summer sea ice cover faster than almost anywhere else on the planet, a change already reshaping the ecosystem's food web and the ranges of the species that depend on it, and making the Arctic one of the most closely watched systems for the effects of a warming climate anywhere in the world.
Facts
Classification
Biogeographic Realm Biogeographic Realm Area (sq km) Connections
Demonstrates
Source National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Hosts
Source Arctic grayling (Wikipedia)
Source Atlantic cod - Wikipedia
Source Bearded seal (Wikipedia)
Source Beluga Whale (Wikipedia)
Source Wikidata: Lion's Mane Jellyfish
Additional Source Arctic Ocean (Wikipedia)Article text
Source Wikipedia: Chinook Salmon
Source Harp Seal (Wikipedia)
Source Wikidata: Lion's Mane Jellyfish
Additional Source Arctic Ocean (Wikipedia)Article text
Source World Wildlife Fund
Source Phoronid, Wikipedia
Source World Wildlife Fund
Source Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology: Animal Diversity Web: Histriophoca fasciata
Source Ringed seal (Wikipedia)
Source Sea trout (Wikipedia)
Source Wikipedia: Saccharina latissima
Source Tundra swan (Wikipedia)
Source World Wildlife Fund
In Biome
Source World Wildlife Fund
In the Other Atlases
Found In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Sources
1. WWF Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World
World Wildlife Fund- largely enclosed by North America and Greenland
- largely enclosed by Europe and Asia
View the Source 2. Arctic Ocean (Wikipedia)
WikipediaLead section, first paragraph, ocean area figure
It spans an area of approximately 14,060,000 km2 (5,430,000 sq mi) and is the coldest of the world's oceans.
Hosts: Lion's Mane Jellyfish, Article text
Lion's mane jellyfish are abundant in the waters of the Arctic, and the banded gunnel is the only species of gunnel that lives in the ocean.
Hosts: Calanus Finmarchicus, Article text
Important consumers of primary producers in the central Arctic Ocean and the adjacent shelf seas include zooplankton, especially copepods (Calanus finmarchicus, Calanus glacialis, and Calanus hyperboreus) and euphausiids, as well as ice-associated fauna (e.
View the Source World Wildlife Fund
World Wildlife Fund- In Biome: Sea Ice
- Hosts: Narwhal
- Hosts: Polar Bear
- Hosts: Walrus
View the Source National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationDemonstrates: AuroraView the Source Harp Seal (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationHosts: Harp Seal, Wikipedia intro: "and seal, is a species of earless seal, or true seal, native to the northernmost Atlantic Ocean and Arctic Ocean. Originally in the genus Phoca with a number of..."View the Source Beluga Whale (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationHosts: Beluga Whale, Wikipedia intro: "d their diets vary according to their locations and the season. The majority of belugas live in the Arctic Ocean and the seas and coasts around North America, R..."View the Source Wikipedia: Saccharina latissima
WikipediaHosts: Sugar Kelp, Wikipedia intro: "is one of the species known to Japanese cuisine as kombu. It is found in the north Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean and north Pacific Ocean."View the Source Bearded seal (Wikipedia)
Hosts: Bearded Seal, Wikipedia intro: "also known as the square-flipper seal, is a medium-sized pinniped that is found in and near to the Arctic Ocean. It gets its generic name from two Greek words (..."View the Source Ringed seal (Wikipedia)
Hosts: Ringed Seal, Wikipedia intro: "ost abundant and wide-ranging ice seal in the Northern Hemisphere; they can be found throughout the Arctic Ocean, into the Bering Sea and Okhotsk Sea as far sou..."View the Source Atlantic cod - Wikipedia
Hosts: Atlantic Cod, LeadQuote, Hosts: Atlantic Cod, Lead
In the western Atlantic Ocean, cod has a distribution north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and around both coasts of Greenland and the Labrador Sea; in the eastern Atlantic, it is found from the Bay of Biscay north to the Arctic Ocean, including the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, Sea of the Hebrides, areas around Iceland and the Barents Sea.
Wikipedia: Chinook Salmon
WikipediaHosts: Chinook Salmon, Natural rangeQuote, Hosts: Chinook Salmon, Natural range
In the western Pacific, the distribution ranges from northern Japan (Hokkaido) in the south to the Arctic Ocean as far as the East Siberian Sea and Palyavaam River in the north.
Phoronid, Wikipedia
Hosts: Phoronid, LeadQuote, Hosts: Phoronid, Lead
They live in most of the oceans and seas, including the Arctic Ocean but excluding the Antarctic Ocean, and between the intertidal zone and about 400 meters down.
Tundra swan (Wikipedia)
Hosts: Tundra swan, C. c. columbianus distributionQuote, Hosts: Tundra swan, C. c. columbianus distribution
The birds breeding along the Arctic Ocean coast migrate via Canada and the Great Lakes region to winter at the Atlantic coast of the United States, mainly from Maryland to North Carolina, but some move as far south as Florida.
Arctic grayling (Wikipedia)
Hosts: Arctic Grayling, RangeQuote, Hosts: Arctic Grayling, Range
Arctic grayling are widespread in Arctic Ocean drainages from Hudson Bay, Canada to Alaska and in Arctic and Pacific drainages to central Alberta and British Columbia in Canada.
Sea trout (Wikipedia)
Hosts: Sea trout, RangeQuote, Hosts: Sea trout, Range
They do not occur in the Mediterranean Sea but are found in the Black and Caspian Seas and as far north as the Barents and Kara Seas in the Arctic Ocean.
Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology: Animal Diversity Web: Histriophoca fasciata
Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan Museum of ZoologyHosts: Ribbon Seal, Geographic RangeQuote, Hosts: Ribbon Seal, Geographic Range
Ribbon seals ( Histriophoca fasciata ) are native to Arctic regions, occurring throughout icy waters of the northern Pacific Ocean and southern Arctic Ocean.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.