Arctic – the northernmost region of the Earth within the Arctic circle at latitude 66°30′N, centred on the North Pole. It consists of offshores, which during summer are covered with drifting ice that creates marginal conditions preventing navigation. The other part is either permafrost under icy cover or treeless tundra. The Arctic includes the Arctic Ocean with adjacent seas and islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the Greenland with islands Spitsbergen, the Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Severnaya Zemlya, the New Siberian Islands, the Wrangel Island and others, part of the northern coast of Europe, the north coast of Asia and America, with the most part of Taymyr. The Arctic frontier is usually defined as a contour line of +10 °C of the warmest month – July or August, approximately equal to the timberline. The Arctic territory covers in total 25 million km2; 10 million km2 are under land and the rest is ocean.
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(2017). Arctic. In: The Western Arctic Seas Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia of Seas. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25582-8_10032
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25582-8_10032
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