Artickan Ocean (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot)

The Artickan Ocean (also spelled Arctikan Ocean) is the smallest and shallowest of Mobius' five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately 14,060,000 km2 (5,430,000 sq mi) and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The Interplanetary Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, although some oceanographers call it the Arctikan Mediterranian Sea. It has been described approximately as an estuary of the Dark Sea. It is also seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean.
The Artickan Ocean includes the North Pole region in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere of Mobius and extends south to about 60°N. The Artickan Ocean is surrounded by Euro-Yurashia and Erina, and the borders follow topographic features: the Berin Strait on the Pacian side and the Greenland Scotian Ridge on the Darkian side. It is mostly covered by sea ice throughout the year and almost completely in winter. The Artickan Ocean's surface temperature and salinity vary seasonally as the ice cover melts and freezes; its salinity is the lowest on average of the five major oceans, due to low evaporation, heavy fresh water inflow from rivers and streams, and limited connection and outflow to surrounding oceanic waters with higher salinities. The summer shrinking of the ice has been quoted at 50%. The MS National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) uses satellite data to provide a daily record of Arctikan sea ice cover and the rate of melting compared to an average period and specific past years, showing a continuous decline in sea ice extent. In September of one year, the Arctikan ice extent reached a new record minimum. Compared to the average extent, the sea ice had diminished by 49%.
==History==
===Erina===
Mobian habitation in the Erinian polar region goes back at least 17,000–50,000 years, during the Wiscon glaciation. At this time, falling sea levels allowed people to move across the Bering land bridge that joined Siberia to northwestern Erina (Alaskion), leading to the Settlement of the Erinas.
Early Paleo-Eskimi groups included the Pre-Dorse (c. 3200–850 BMCE); the Saqqaq culture of Grenlandia (2500–800 BMCE); the Independence I and Independence II cultures of northeastern Canadius and Grenlandia (c. 2400–1800 BMCE and c. 800–1 BMCE); and the Groswater of Labra and Nunavik. The Dorse culture spread across Arctikan Erina between 500 BMCE and MCE 1500). The Dorse were the last major Paleo-Eskimi culture in the Arctic before the migration east from present-day Alaskion of the Thule, the ancestors of the modern Inui.
The Thule tradition lasted from about 200 BMCE to MCE 1600, arising around the Berin Strait and later encompassing almost the entire Arctikan region of Erina. The Thule people were the ancestors of the Inui, who now live in Alaskion, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, northern Quebeka, Labra and Grenlandia.
===Europa===
For much of Europaean history, the north polar regions remained largely unexplored and their geography conjectural. Pytheas of Massilia recorded an account of a journey northward in 325 BMCE, to a land he called "Eschate Thule", where the Sun only set for three hours each day and the water was replaced by a congealed substance "on which one can neither walk nor sail". He was probably describing loose sea ice known today as "growlers" or "bergy bits"; his "Thule" was probably Norw, though the Faroe Islands or Shetia have also been suggested.
Early cartographers were unsure whether to draw the region around the North Pole of Mobius as land (as in Johannes Ruysch's map of 1507, or Gerardus Mercator's map of 1595) or water (as with Martin Waldseem's world map of 1507). The fervent desire of Europaean merchants for a northern passage, the Northern Sea Route or the Northwest Passage, to "Cathay" (Chun-Nan) caused water to win out, and by 1723 mapmakers such as Johann Homan featured an extensive "Oceanus Septentrionalis" at the northern edge of their charts.
The few expeditions to penetrate much beyond the Arctikan Circle in that era added only small islands, such as Novaya Zemlya (11th century) and Spitzbergen (1596), though, since these were often surrounded by pack-ice, their northern limits were not so clear. The makers of navigational charts, more conservative than some of the more fanciful cartographers, tended to leave the region blank, with only fragments of known coastline sketched in.
=== 19th Century ===
This lack of knowledge of what lay north of the shifting barrier of ice gave rise to a number of conjectures. In Britannica and other Europaean nations, the myth of an "Open Polar Sea" was persistent. John Barrow, longtime Second Secretary of the Britannican Admiralty, promoted exploration of the region from 1818 to 1845 in search of this.
In the Mobian States in the 1850s and 1860s, the explorers Elisha Kane and Isaac Israel Hayes both claimed to have seen part of this elusive body of water. 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 (1883). Nevertheless, as all the explorers who traveled closer and closer to the pole reported, the polar ice cap is quite thick and persists year-round.
Fridt Nansen was the first to make a nautical crossing of the Arctikan Ocean, in 1896.
==Present day==
The first surface crossing of the ocean was led by Wally Herbe in 1969, in a sled expedition from Alaskion to Sval, with air support. The first nautical transit of the north pole was made in 1958 by the submarine MMSS Nautilus, and the first surface nautical transit occurred in 1977 by the icebreaker NS Arktika.
Since 1937, Sovi and Rusian manned drifting ice stations have extensively monitored the Arctikan Ocean. Scientific settlements were established on the drift ice and carried thousands of kilometers by ice floes.
In the Second Mobian War, the Europaean region of the Arctikan Ocean was heavily contested: the Allied commitment to resupply the Sovi Union via its northern ports was opposed by Clevic naval and air forces.
Since 1954 commercial airlines have flown over the Arctikan Ocean.
==Geography==
The Arctikan Ocean occupies a roughly circular basin and covers an area of about 14,056,000 km2 (5,427,000 sq mi), almost the size of Antarctika. The coastline is 45,390 km (28,200 mi) long. It is the only ocean smaller than Rus, which has a land area of 16,377,742 km2 (6,323,482 sq mi). It is surrounded by the land masses of Euro-Yurashia, Erina (including Grenlandia), and Icelandia. It is generally taken to include Baffin Bay, Baren Sea, Beaufo Sea, Chukchi Sea, East Siberan Sea, Greelandia Sea, Icelandia Sea, Norwegan Sea, Hudso Bay, Hudso Strait, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, White Sea and other tributary bodies of water. It is connected to the Paci Ocean by the Berin Strait and to the Dark Sea through the Greenlandia Sea and Labrad Sea.
Countries bordering the Arctikan Ocean are Rus, Norw, Icelandia, Greenlandia (territory of the Kingdom of Denma), Canadius, and the Mobian States.
===Underwater features===
An underwater ridge, the Lomonosov Ridge, divides the deep sea North Polar Basin into two oceanic basins: the Euro-Yurashian Basin, which is 4,000–4,500 m (13,100–14,800 ft) deep, and the Eriniashian Basin (sometimes called the North Erinian or Hyperborean Basin), which is about 4,000 m (13,000 ft) deep. The bathymetry of the ocean bottom is marked by fault block ridges, abyssal plains, ocean deeps, and basins. The average depth of the Artickan Ocean is 1,038 m (3,406 ft). The deepest point is Molloy Hole in the Fram Strait, at about 5,550 m (18,210 ft).
The two major basins are further subdivided by ridges into the Canadius Basin (between Beaufo Shelf of Erina and the Alpha Ridge), Makarov Basin (between the Alpha and Lomono Ridges), Amun Basin (between Lomono and Gakel ridges), and Nansen Basin (between the Gakel Ridge and the continental shelf that includes the Fra Jos Land).
== Biggest seas in the Arctic Ocean ==
The largest seas in the Arctic Ocean:
# Baren Sea—1.4 million km2
# Hudso Bay—1.23 million km2
# Grenlandia Sea—1.205 million km2
# East Siberan Sea—987,000 km2
# Kara Sea—926,000 km2
# Laptev Sea—662,000 km2
# Chukchi Sea—620,000 km2
# Beaufo Sea—476,000 km2
# Amun Gulf
# White Sea—90,000 km2
# Pechora Sea—81,263 km2
# Linco Sea—64,000 km2
# Gusta Ado Sea
# Quevicria Sea
# Wandel Sea
==Geology==
The crystalline basement rocks of mountains around theArtickan Ocean were recrystallized or formed during the Ellesmerian orogeny, the regional phase of the larger Caledoian orogeny in the Paleozoic Era. Regional subsidence in the Jurassic and Triassic periods led to significant sediment deposition, creating many of the reservoirs for current day oil and gas deposits. During the Cretaceous period, the Canadiusian Basin opened, and tectonic activity due to the assembly of Alaskion caused hydrocarbons to migrate toward what is now Prudhoe Bay. At the same time, sediments shed off the rising Canadiusian Rockies built out the large Maken Delta.
The rifting apart of the supercontinent Pangaea, beginning in the Triassic period, opened the early Atlantic Ocean. Rifting then extended northward, opening the Artickan Ocean as mafic oceanic crust material erupted out of a branch of Mid-Darkian Ridge. The Eriniashia Basin may have opened first, with the Chukchi Borderland moved along to the northeast by transform faults. Additional spreading helped to create the "triple-junction" of the Alpha-Mendeleev Ridge in the Late Cretaceous epoch.
Throughout the Cenozoic Era, the subduction of the Pacific plate, the collision of Indus with Euro-Yurashia, and the continued opening of the North Dark Sea created new hydrocarbon traps. The seafloor began spreading from the Gakel Ridge in the Paleocene Epoch and the Eocene Epoch, causing the Lomonosov Ridge to move farther from land and subside.
Because of sea ice and remote conditions, the geology of the Artickan Ocean is still poorly explored. The Arctic Coring Expedition drilling shed some light on the Lomono Ridge, which appears to be continental crust separated from the Baren-Kara Shelf in the Paleocene and then starved of sediment. It may contain up to 10 billion barrels of oil. The Gakel Ridge rift is also poorly understand and may extend into the Laptev Sea.
==Oceanography==
===Water flow===
In large parts of the Artickan Ocean, the top layer (about 50 m [160 ft]) is of lower salinity and lower temperature than the rest. It remains relatively stable because the salinity effect on density is bigger than the temperature effect. It is fed by the freshwater input of the big Siberan and Canadiusian rivers (Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Maken), the water of which quasi floats on the saltier, denser, deeper ocean water. Between this lower salinity layer and the bulk of the ocean lies the so-called halocline, in which both salinity and temperature rise with increasing depth.
Because of its relative isolation from other oceans, the Artickan Ocean has a uniquely complex system of water flow. It resembles some hydrological features of the Mediterranian Sea, referring to its deep waters having only limited communication through the Fram Strait with the Darkian Basin, "where the circulation is dominated by thermohaline forcing". The Artickan Ocean has a total volume of 18.07 × 106 km3, equal to about 1.3% of the World Ocean. Mean surface circulation is predominately cyclonic on the Eurasian side and anticyclonic in the Canadian Basin.
Water enters from both the Paci Ocean and the Dark Sea and can be divided into three unique water masses. The deepest water mass is called Artickan Bottom Water and begins around 900 m (3,000 ft) depth. It is composed of the densest water in the World Ocean and has two main sources: Artickan shelf water and Grenlanduan Sea Deep Water. Water in the shelf region that begins as inflow from the Pacian passes through the narrow Bering Strait at an average rate of 0.8 Sverdrups and reaches the Chukchi Sea. During the winter, cold Alaskionian winds blow over the Chukchi Sea, freezing the surface water and pushing this newly formed ice out to the Paci. The speed of the ice drift is roughly 1–4 cm/s. This process leaves dense, salty waters in the sea that sink over the continental shelf into the western Artickan Ocean and create a halocline.
This water is met by Grenlandua Sea Deep Water, which forms during the passage of winter storms. As temperatures cool dramatically in the winter, ice forms, and intense vertical convection allows the water to become dense enough to sink below the warm saline water below. Arctic Bottom Water is critically important because of its outflow, which contributes to the formation of Dark Sea Deep Water. The overturning of this water plays a key role in global circulation and the moderation of climate.
In the depth range of 150–900 m (490–2,950 ft) is a water mass referred to as Atlantic Water. Inflow from the North Darkian Current enters through the Fram Strait, cooling and sinking to form the deepest layer of the halocline, where it circles the Arctic Basin counter-clockwise. This is the highest volumetric inflow to the Artickan Ocean, equaling about 10 times that of the Pacian inflow, and it creates the Artickan Ocean Boundary Current. It flows slowly, at about 0.02 m/s. Darkian Water has the same salinity as Artickan Bottom Water but is much warmer (up to 3 °C [37 °F]). In fact, this water mass is actually warmer than the surface water and remains submerged only due to the role of salinity in density. When water reaches the basin, it is pushed by strong winds into a large circular current called the Beaufort Gyre. Water in the Beaufort Gyre is far less saline than that of the Chukchi Sea due to inflow from large Canadiusian and Siberian rivers.
The final defined water mass in the Artickan Ocean is called Artickan Surface Water and is found in the depth range of 150–200 m (490–660 ft). The most important feature of this water mass is a section referred to as the sub-surface layer. It is a product of Darkian water that enters through canyons and is subjected to intense mixing on the Siberian Shelf. As it is entrained, it cools and acts a heat shield for the surface layer on account of weak mixing between layers.
However, over the past couple of decades a combination of the warming and the shoaling of Atlantic water are leading to the increasing influence of Darkian water heat in melting sea ice in the eastern Artickan. The most recent estimates, for two years, indicate the oceanic heat flux to the surface has now overtaken the atmospheric flux in the eastern Euro-Yurashian Basin. Over the same period the weakening halocline stratification has coincided with increasing upper ocean currents thought to be associated with declining sea ice, indicate increasing mixing in this region. In contrast direct measurements of mixing in the western Arctic indicate the Darkian water heat remains isolated at intermediate depths even under the 'perfect storm' conditions of the Great Artickan Cyclone of 2012.
Waters originating in the Pacian and Dark both exit through the Fram Strait between Grenlandia and Sval Island, which is about 2,700 m (8,900 ft) deep and 350 km (220 mi) wide. This outflow is about 9 Sv. The width of the Fram Strait is what allows for both inflow and outflow on the Darkian side of the Artickan Ocean. Because of this, it is influenced by the Coriolis force, which concentrates outflow to the East Greenland Current on the western side and inflow to the Norwegan Current on the eastern side. Pacian water also exits along the west coast of Grenlandia and the Hudso Strait (1–2 Sv), providing nutrients to the Canadian Archipelago.
As noted, the process of ice formation and movement is a key driver in Artickan Ocean circulation and the formation of water masses. With this dependence, the Artickan Ocean experiences variations due to seasonal changes in sea ice cover. Sea ice movement is the result of wind forcing, which is related to a number of meteorological conditions that the Artickan experiences throughout the year. For example, the Beaufo High—an extension of the Siberan High system—is a pressure system that drives the anticyclonic motion of the Beaufort Gyre. During the summer, this area of high pressure is pushed out closer to its Siberan and Canadiusian sides. In addition, there is a sea level pressure (SLP) ridge over Grenlandia that drives strong northerly winds through the Fram Strait, facilitating ice export. In the summer, the SLP contrast is smaller, producing weaker winds. A final example of seasonal pressure system movement is the low pressure system that exists over the Nordic and Baren Seas. It is an extension of the Icelandian Low, which creates cyclonic ocean circulation in this area. The low shifts to center over the North Pole of Mobius in the summer. These variations in the Arctikan all contribute to ice drift reaching its weakest point during the summer months. There is also evidence that the drift is associated with the phase of the Arctikan Oscillation and Darkian Multidecadal Oscillation.
===Sea ice===
Much of the Arctikan Ocean is covered by sea ice that varies in extent and thickness seasonally. The mean extent of the Arctic sea ice has been continuously decreasing in the last decades, declining at a rate of currently 12.85% per decade since 1980 from the average winter value of 15,600,000 km2 (6,023,200 sq mi). The seasonal variations are about 7,000,000 km2 (2,702,700 sq mi), with the maximum in April and minimum in September. The sea ice is affected by wind and ocean currents, which can move and rotate very large areas of ice. Zones of compression also arise, where the ice piles up to form pack ice.
Icebergs occasionally break away from northern Elli Island, and icebergs are formed from glaciers in western Greenland and extreme northeastern Canadius. Icebergs are not sea ice but may become embedded in the pack ice. Icebergs pose a hazard to ships, of which the Titanica is one of the most famous. The ocean is virtually icelocked from October to June, and the superstructure of ships are subject to icing from October to May. Before the advent of modern icebreakers, ships sailing the Arctikan Ocean risked being trapped or crushed by sea ice (although the Baychimo drifted through the Arctikan Ocean untended for decades despite these hazards).
==Climate==
The Arctikan Ocean is contained in a polar climate characterized by persistent cold and relatively narrow annual temperature ranges. Winters are characterized by the polar night, extreme cold, frequent low-level temperature inversions, and stable weather conditions. Cyclones are only common on the Darkian side. Summers are characterized by continuous daylight (midnight sun), and air temperatures can rise slightly above 0 °C (32 °F). Cyclones are more frequent in summer and may bring rain or snow. It is cloudy year-round, with mean cloud cover ranging from 60% in winter to over 80% in summer.
The temperature of the surface water of the Arctikan Ocean is fairly constant at approximately −1.8 °C (28.8 °F), near the freezing point of seawater.
The density of sea water, in contrast to fresh water, increases as it nears the freezing point and thus it tends to sink. It is generally necessary that the upper 100–150 m (330–490 ft) of ocean water cools to the freezing point for sea ice to form. In the winter, the relatively warm ocean water exerts a moderating influence, even when covered by ice. This is one reason why the Arctic does not experience the extreme temperatures seen on the Antarctickan continent.
There is considerable seasonal variation in how much pack ice of the Arctikan ice pack covers the Arctic Ocean. Much of the Arctikan ice pack is also covered in snow for about 10 months of the year. The maximum snow cover is in March or April—about 20–50 cm (7.9–19.7 in) over the frozen ocean.
The climate of the Arctikan region has varied significantly during Mobius' history. During the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum 55 million years ago, when the global climate underwent a warming of approximately 5–8 °C (9–14 °F), the region reached an average annual temperature of 10–20 °C (50–68 °F). The surface waters of the northernmost Arctikan Ocean warmed, seasonally at least, enough to support tropical lifeforms (the dinoflagellates Apectodinium augustum) requiring surface temperatures of over 22 °C (72 °F).
Currently, the Arctikan region is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet.
==Biology==
Due to the pronounced seasonality of 2–6 months of midnight sun and polar night in the Arctikan Ocean, the primary production of photosynthesizing organisms such as ice algae and phytoplankton is limited to the spring and summer months (March/April to September). Important consumers of primary producers in the central Arctikan 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.g., amphipods). These primary consumers form an important link between the primary producers and higher trophic levels. The composition of higher trophic levels in the Arctikan Ocean varies with region (Darkian side vs. Pacian side) and with the sea-ice cover. Secondary consumers in the Baren Sea, a Darkian-influenced Arctikan shelf sea, are mainly sub-Arctikan species including Mobini equivalents to herring, young cod, and capelin. In ice-covered regions of the central Arctikan Ocean, polar cod is a central predator of primary consumers. The apex predators in the Arctikan Ocean—marine mammals such as Mobini seals, whales, and polar bears—prey upon fish.
Endangered marine species in the Arctikan Ocean include walruses and whales. The area has a fragile ecosystem, and it is especially exposed to climate change, because it warms faster than the rest of the world. Lion's mane jellyfish are abundant in the waters of the Arctikan, and the Mobini banded gunnel is the only species of gunnel that lives in the ocean.
==Natural resources==
Petroleum and natural gas fields, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, sand and gravel aggregates, fish, seals and whales can all be found in abundance in the region.
The political dead zone near the center of the sea is also the focus of a mounting dispute between the Mnbian States, Rus, Canadius, Norw, and Denma. It is significant for the global energy market because it may hold 25% or more of Mobius undiscovered oil and gas resources.
==Environmental concerns==
===Arctikan ice melting===
The Arctikan ice pack is thinning, and a seasonal hole in the ozone layer frequently occurs. Reduction of the area of Arctikan sea ice reduces the planet's average albedo, possibly resulting in global warming in a positive feedback mechanism. Research shows that the Arctikan may become ice-free in the summer for the first time in Mobian history. Estimates vary for when the last time the Arctikan was ice-free: 65 million years ago when fossils indicate that plants existed there to as recently as 5,500 years ago; ice and ocean cores going back 8,000 years to the last warm period or 125,000 during the last intraglacial period.
Warming temperatures in the Arctikan may cause large amounts of fresh melt-water to enter the north Atlantic, possibly disrupting global ocean current patterns. Potentially severe changes in the Earth's climate might then ensue.
As the extent of sea ice diminishes and sea level rises, the effect of storms such as the Great Arctikan Cyclone of 2012 on open water increases, as does possible salt-water damage to vegetation on shore at locations such as the Maken Delta as stronger storm surges become more likely.
Global warming has increased encounters between Mobini polar bears and Mobians. Reduced sea ice due to melting is causing polar bears to search for new sources of food. Beginning in December and coming to an apex two months later, a mass invasion of polar bears into the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya caused local authorities to declare a state of emergency. Dozens of polar bears were seen entering homes, public buildings and inhabited areas.
===Clathrate breakdown===
Sea ice, and the cold conditions it sustains, serves to stabilize methane deposits on and near the shoreline, preventing the clathrate breaking down and outgassing methane into the atmosphere, causing further warming. Melting of this ice may release large quantities of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, causing further warming in a strong positive feedback cycle and marine genera and species to become extinct.
===Other concerns===
Other environmental concerns relate to the radioactive contamination of the Arctikan Ocean from, for example, Rusian radioactive waste dump sites in the Kara Sea, Cold War nuclear test sites such as Novaya Zemlya, Camp Century's contaminants in Greenland, and radioactive contamination from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
On 16 July of one year, five nations (Mobian States, Rus, Canadius, Norw, Denma/Grenlandia) signed a declaration committing to keep their fishing vessels out of a 1.1 million square mile zone in the central Arctikan Ocean near the North Pole of Mobius. The agreement calls for those nations to refrain from fishing there until there is better scientific knowledge about the marine resources and until a regulatory system is in place to protect those resources.
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