Topography of the ocean floor

From the late 19th century, when the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen first discovered an ocean in the central Arctic, until the middle of the 20th century, it was believed that the Arctic Ocean was a single large basin. Explorations after 1950 revealed the true complex nature of the ocean floor. Rather than being a single basin, the Arctic Ocean consists of two principal deep basins that are subdivided into four smaller basins by three transoceanic submarine ridges. The central of these ridges extends from the continental shelf off Ellesmere Island to the New Siberian Islands, a distance of 1,100 miles (1,770 km). This enormous submarine mountain range was discovered by Soviet scientists in 1948–49 and reported in 1954. It is named the Lomonosov Ridge after the scientist, poet, and grammarian Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov.

The Lomonosov Ridge has an average relief of about 10,000 feet and divides the Arctic Ocean into two physiographically complex basins. These are referred to as the Eurasia Basin on the European side of the ridge and the Amerasia Basin on the American side. The Lomonosov Ridge varies in width from 40 to 120 miles, and its crest ranges in depth between 3,100 and 5,400 feet.

The Eurasia Basin is divided into two smaller basins by a trans-Arctic Ocean extension of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This Arctic segment of the global ridge system is called the Nansen Cordillera, which was named for Fridtjof Nansen after its discovery in the early 1960s. It is a locus of active ocean-floor spreading, with a well-developed rift valley and flanking rift mountains. The Fram Basin lies between the Nansen-Gakkel Ridge and the Lomonosov Ridge at a depth of 14,070 feet. The geographic north pole is located over the floor of the Fram Basin near its juncture with the Lomonosov Ridge. The smallest of the Arctic Ocean subbasins, called the Nansen Basin, lies between the Nansen-Gakkel Ridge and the Eurasian continental margin and has a floor depth of 13,800 feet.

The Amerasia Basin is divided into two unequal basins by the Alpha Cordillera (Alpha Ridge), a broad, rugged submarine mountain chain that extends to within 4,600 feet of the ocean surface. The origin of this seismically inactive ridge, which was discovered in the late 1950s, is undetermined and holds the key to understanding the origin of the Amerasia Basin. The Makarov Basin lies between the Alpha Cordillera and the Lomonosov Ridge, and its floor is at a depth of 13,200 feet. The largest subbasin of the Arctic Ocean is the Canada Basin, which extends approximately 700 miles from the Beaufort Shelf to the Alpha Cordillera. The smooth basin floor slopes gently from east to west, where it is interrupted by regions of sea knolls. The average depth of the Canada Basin is 12,500 feet.

The Arctic Ocean is unique in that nearly one-third of its total area is underlain by continental shelf, which is asymmetrically distributed around its circumference. North of Alaska and Greenland the shelf is 60 to 120 miles wide, which is the normal width of continental shelves. In contrast, the Siberian and Chukchi shelves off Eurasia range from 300 to 1,100 miles in width. The edge of the continental margin is dissected by numerous submarine valleys. The largest of these, the Svyataya Anna Trough, is 110 miles wide and 300 miles long.

Oceanography

Several factors in the Arctic Ocean make its physical, chemical, and biological processes significantly different from those in the adjoining North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Most notable is the covering ice pack, which reduces the exchange of energy between ocean and atmosphere by about 100 times. In addition, sea ice greatly reduces the penetration of sunlight needed for the photosynthetic processes of marine life and impedes the mixing effect of the winds. A further significant distinguishing feature is the high ratio of freely connected shallow seas to deep basins. Whereas the continental shelf on the North American side of the Arctic Ocean is of a normal width (approximately 40 miles), the Eurasian sector is hundreds of miles broad, with peninsulas and islands dividing it into five main marginal seas: the Chukchi, East Siberian, Laptev, Kara, and Barents. These marginal seas occupy 36 percent of the area of the Arctic Ocean, yet they contain only 2 percent of its water volume. With the exception of the Mackenzie River of Canada and the Colville River of Alaska, all major rivers discharge into these marginal shallow seas. The combination of large marginal seas, with a high ratio of exposed surface to total volume, plus large summer inputs of fresh water, greatly influences surface-water conditions in the Arctic Ocean.

As an approximation, the Arctic Ocean may be regarded as an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. The major circulation into and from the Arctic Basin is through a single deep channel, the Fram Strait, which lies between the island of Spitsbergen and Greenland. A substantially smaller quantity (approximately one-quarter of the volume) of water is transported southward through the Barents and Kara seas and the Canadian Archipelago. The combined outflow to the Atlantic appears to be of major significance to the large-scale thermohaline circulation and mean temperature of the world ocean with a potentially profound impact on global climate variability. Warm waters entering the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian (GIN) Sea plunge downward when they meet the colder waters from more northerly produced fresh water, southward-drifting ice, and a colder atmosphere. This produces North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW), which circulates in the world ocean. An increase in this freshwater and ice export could shut down the thermocline convection in the GIN Sea; alternatively, a decrease in ice export might allow for convection and ventilation in the Arctic Ocean itself.

Low-salinity waters enter the Arctic Ocean from the Pacific through the shallow Bering Strait. Although the mean inflow seems to be driven by a slight difference in sea level between the North Pacific and Arctic oceans, a large source of variability is induced by the wind field, primarily large-scale atmospheric circulation over the North Pacific. The amount of fresh water entering the Arctic Ocean is about 2 percent of the total input. Precipitation is believed to be about 10 times greater than loss by evaporation, although both figures can be only roughly estimated. Through all these various routes and mechanisms, the exchange rate of the Arctic Ocean is estimated to be approximately 210 million cubic feet (5.9 million cubic metres) per second.

All waters of the Arctic Ocean are cold. Variations in density are thus mainly determined by changes in salinity. Arctic waters have a two-layer system: a thin and less dense surface layer is separated by a strong density gradient, referred to as a pycnocline, from the main body of water, which is of quite uniform density. This pycnocline restricts convective motion and the vertical transfer of heat and salt, and hence the surface layer acts as a cap over the larger masses of warmer water below.

Despite this overall similarity in gross oceanographic structure, the waters of the Arctic Ocean can be classified into three major masses and one lesser mass.

1. The water extending from the surface to a depth of about 650 feet (about 200 metres) is the most variable and heterogeneous of all that in the Arctic. This is because of the latent heat of freezing and thawing; brine addition from the process of ice freezing; freshwater addition by rivers, ice melting, and precipitation; and great variations in insolation (rate of delivery of solar energy) and energy flux as a result of sea ice cover. Water temperature may vary over a range of 7 °F (4 °C) and salinity from 28 to 34 grams of salt per kilogram of seawater (28 to 34 parts per thousand [ 0/00]).

2. Warmer Atlantic water everywhere underlies Arctic surface water from a depth of about 650 to 3,000 feet. As it cools it becomes so dense that it slips below the surface layer on entering the Arctic Basin. The temperature of this water is about 34 to 37 °F (1 to 3 °C) as it enters the basin, but it is gradually cooled so that by the time it spreads to the Beaufort Sea it has a maximum temperature of 32.9 to 33.1 °F (0.5 to 0.6 °C). The salinity of the Atlantic layer varies between 34.5 and 35 0/00.

3. Bottom water extends beneath the Atlantic layer to the ocean floor. This is colder than the Atlantic water (below 32 °F, or 0 °C) but has the same salinity.

4. An inflow of Pacific water can be observed in the Amerasia Basin but not in the Eurasia Basin. This warmer and fresher water mixes with colder and more saline water in the Chukchi Sea, where its density enables it to flow as a wedge between the Arctic and Atlantic waters. The Pacific water, by the time it reaches the Canada Basin, has a temperature range of 31.1 to 30.8 °F (−0.5 to −0.7 °C) and salinities between 31.5 and 33 0/00.

Arctic waters are driven by the wind and by density differences. The net effect of tides is unknown but could have some modifying effect on gross circulation. The motion of surface waters is best known from observations of ice drift. The most striking feature of the surface circulation pattern is the large clockwise gyre (circular motion) that covers almost the entire Amerasia Basin. Fletcher’s Ice Island (T-3) made two orbits in this gyre over a 20-year period, which is some indication of the current speed. The northern extremity of the gyre bifurcates and jets out of the Greenland-Spitsbergen passage as the East Greenland Current, attaining speeds of 6 to 16 inches per second. Circulation of the shallow Eurasian shelf seas seems to be a complex series of counterclockwise gyres, complicated by islands and other topographic relief.

Circulation of the deeper Atlantic water is less well known. On entering the Eurasia Basin, the plunging Greenland Sea water appears to flow eastward along the edge of the continental margin until it fans out and enters the Amerasia Basin along a broad front over the crest of the Lomonosov Ridge. There seems to be a general counterclockwise circulation in the Eurasia Basin and a smaller clockwise gyre in the Beaufort Sea. Speeds are slow—probably less than two inches per second.

The circulation of the bottom water is unknown but can be inferred to be similar to the Atlantic layer. Measured values of dissolved oxygen show that the bottom water is well ventilated, dissolved oxygen everywhere exceeding 70 percent of saturation.