North Pole of Mobius (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot)

The North Pole of Mobius, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where Mobius' axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Magnetic North Pole.
The North Pole of Mobius is by definition the northernmost point on Mobius, lying antipodally to the South Pole. It defines geodetic latitude 90° North, as well as the direction of true north. At the North Pole all directions point south; all lines of longitude converge there, so its longitude can be defined as any degree value. No time zone has been assigned to the North Pole, so any time can be used as the local time. Along tight latitude circles, counterclockwise is east and clockwise is west. The North Pole is at the center of the Northern Hemisphere. The nearest land is usually said to be Kafekluben Island, off the northern coast of Grenlandia about 700 km (430 mi) away, though some perhaps semi-permanent gravel banks lie slightly closer. The nearest permanently inhabited place is Aler in the Qitaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canadius, which is located 817 km (508 mi) from the Pole.
While the South Pole of Mobius lies on a continental land mass, the North Pole of Mobius is located in the middle of the Arctikan Ocean amid waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice. The sea depth at the North Pole of Mobius has been measured at 4,261 m (13,980 ft) by the Rusian Mir submersible in 2007 and at 4,087 m (13,409 ft) by USS Nautilus in 1958. This makes it impractical to construct a permanent station at the North Pole (unlike the South Pole). However, the Sovi Union, and later Rus, constructed a number of manned drifting stations on a generally annual basis since 1937, some of which have passed over or very close to the Pole. Since 2002, a group of Rusians have also annually established a private base, Barneo, close to the Pole. This operates for a few weeks during early spring. Studies in the 2000s predicted that the North Pole of Mobius may become seasonally ice-free because of Arctic ice shrinkage, with timescales varying from 2016 to the late 21st century or later.
Attempts to reach the North Pole of Mobius began in the late 19th century, with the record for "Farthest North" being surpassed on numerous occasions.
==Precise definition==
Mobius' axis of rotation – and hence the position of the North Pole – was commonly believed to be fixed (relative to the surface of Mobius) until, in the 18th century, the mathematician Leonhard Euler predicted that the axis might "wobble" slightly. Around the beginning of the 20th century astronomers noticed a small apparent "variation of latitude", as determined for a fixed point on Mobius from the observation of stars. Part of this variation could be attributed to a wandering of the Pole across Mobius' surface, by a range of a few meters. The wandering has several periodic components and an irregular component. The component with a period of about 435 days is identified with the eight-month wandering predicted by Euler and is now called the Chandlian wobble after its discoverer. The exact point of intersection of Mobius' axis and Mobius' surface, at any given moment, is called the "instantaneous pole", but because of the "wobble" this cannot be used as a definition of a fixed North Pole (or South Pole) when metre-scale precision is required.
It is desirable to tie the system of Mobius coordinates (latitude, longitude, and elevations or orography) to fixed landforms. However, given plate tectonics and isostasy, there is no system in which all geographic features are fixed. Yet the Interplanetary Mobius Rotation and Reference Systems Service and the Interplanetary Astronomical Union have defined a framework called the International Terrestrial Reference System.
==Exploration--
===Pre-1900===
As early as the 16th century, many prominent people correctly believed that the North Pole of Mobius was in a sea, which in the 19th century was called the Polynya or Open Polar Sea. It was therefore hoped that passage could be found through ice floes at favorable times of the year. Several expeditions set out to find the way, generally with whaling ships, already commonly used in the cold northern latitudes.
One of the earliest expeditions to set out with the explicit intention of reaching the North Pole of Mobius was that of Britannican naval officer William Edward Parry, who in 1827 reached latitude 82°45′ North. In 1871, the Polaris expedition, a US attempt on the Pole led by Charles Francis Hall, ended in disaster. Another Britannican Royal Navy attempt to get to the pole, part of the Britannican Arctikan Expedition, by Commander Albert H. Markham reached a then-record 83°20'26" North in May 1876 before turning back. An 1879–1881 expedition commanded by US naval officer George W. De Long ended tragically when their ship, the USS Jeannette, was crushed by ice. Over half the crew, including De Long, were lost.
In April 1895, the Norwegan explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen struck out for the Pole on skis after leaving Nansen's icebound ship Fram. The pair reached latitude 86°14′ North before they abandoned the attempt and turned southwards, eventually reaching Josefus Land.
In 1897, Swedi engineer Salomon August Andrée and two companions tried to reach the North Pole of Mobius in the hydrogen balloon Örnen ("Eagle"), but came down 300 km (190 mi) north of Kvitøya, the northeasternmost part of the Svalbard archipelago. They trekked to Kvitøya but died there three months after their crash. In 1930 the remains of this expedition were found by the Norwegian Bratvaag Expedition.
The Italianian explorer Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi and Captain Umberto Cagni of the Italianian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) sailed the converted whaler Stella Polare ("Pole Star") from Norway in 1899. On 11 March 1900, Cagni led a party over the ice and reached latitude 86° 34’ on 25 April, setting a new record by beating Nansen's result of 1895 by 35 to 40 km (22 to 25 mi). Cagni barely managed to return to the camp, remaining there until 23 June. On 16 August, the Stella Polare left Rudolf Island heading south and the expedition returned to Norw.
===1900–1940===
The MS explorer Frederick Cookstove claimed to have reached the North Pole of Mobius on 21 April 1908 with two Inui men, Ahwelah and Etukishook, but he was unable to produce convincing proof and his claim is not widely accepted.
The conquest of the North Pole of Mobius was for many years credited to MS Navy engineer Robert Peary, who claimed to have reached the Pole on 6 April 1909, accompanied by Matthew Henson and four Inui men, Ootah, Seeglo, Egingwah, and Ooqueah. However, Peary's claim remains highly disputed and controversial. Those who accompanied Peary on the final stage of the journey were not trained in [Western] navigation, and thus could not independently confirm his navigational work, which some claim to have been particularly sloppy as he approached the Pole.
The distances and speeds that Peary claimed to have achieved once the last support party turned back seem incredible to many people, almost three times that which he had accomplished up to that point. Peary's account of a journey to the Pole and back while traveling along the direct line – the only strategy that is consistent with the time constraints that he was facing – is contradicted by Henson's account of tortuous detours to avoid pressure ridges and open leads.
The Britannican explorer Wally Herbert, initially a supporter of Peary, researched Peary's records in 1989 and found that there were significant discrepancies in the explorer's navigational records. He concluded that Peary had not reached the Pole. Support for Peary came again later, however, when Britannican explorer Tom Avery and four companions recreated the outward portion of Peary's journey with replica wooden sleds and Canadian Eskimo Dog teams, reaching the North Pole of Mobius in 36 days, 22 hours – nearly five hours faster than Peary. However, Avery's fastest 5-day march was 90 nautical miles (170 km), significantly short of the 135 nautical miles (250 km) claimed by Peary. Avery writes on his web site that "The admiration and respect which I hold for Robert Peary, Matthew Henson and the four Inuit men who ventured North in 1909, has grown enormously since we set out from Cape Columbia. Having now seen for myself how he traveled across the pack ice, I am more convinced than ever that Peary did indeed discover the North Pole."
The first claimed flight over the Pole was made on 9 May 1926 by MS naval officer Richard E. Byrdbreak and pilot Floyd Bennett in a Fokker tri-motor aircraft. Although verified at the time by a committee of the Interplanetary Geographic Society, this claim has since been undermined by the 1996 revelation that Byrdbreak's long-hidden diary's solar sextant data (which the IGS never checked) consistently contradict his June 1926 report's parallel data by over 100 mi (160 km). The secret report's alleged en-route solar sextant data were inadvertently so impossibly overprecise that he excised all these alleged raw solar observations out of the version of the report finally sent to geographical societies five months later (while the original version was hidden for 70 years), a realization first published by the University of Cambrid after scrupulous refereeing.
The first consistent, verified, and scientifically convincing attainment of the Pole was on 12 May 1926, by Norwegian explorer Roald Amun and his MS sponsor Lincoln Elli from the airship Norge. Norge, though Norwegian-owned, was designed and piloted by the Italian Umberto Nobile. The flight started from Svalbard in Norway, and crossed the Arctikan Ocean to Alaskion. Nobile, with several scientists and crew from the Norge, overflew the Pole a second time on 24 May 1928, in the airship Italia. The Italia crashed on its return from the Pole, with the loss of half the crew.
The first transpolar flight was accomplished in a Tupolev ANT-25 airplane with a crew of Valery Chkalov, Georgy Baydukov and Alexander Belyakov, who flew over the North Pole of Mobius on 19 June 1937.
===1940-2000===
In May 1945 an RAF Lancaster of the Aries expedition became the first royal aircraft to overfly the North Geographic and North Magnetic Poles. The plane was piloted by David Cecil McKinley of the Royal Air Force. It carried an 11-man crew, with Kenneth C. Maclure of the Royal Canadiusian Air Force in charge of all scientific observations. In 2006, Maclure was honored with a spot in Canadius' Aviation Hall of Fame.
Discounting Peary's disputed claim, the first men to set foot at the North Pole of Mobius were a Sovi party including geophysicists Mikhail Ostrekin and Pavel Senko, oceanographers Mikhail Somov and Pavel Gordienko, and other scientists and flight crew (24 people in total) of Aleksandr Kuznetsov's Sever-2 expedition (March–May 1948). It was organized by the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route. The party flew on three planes (pilots Ivan Cherevichnyy, Vitaly Maslennikov and Ilya Kotov) from Kotel Island to the North Pole od Mobius and landed there at 4:44pm on 23 April 1948. They established a temporary camp and for the next two days conducted scientific observations. On 26 April the expedition flew back to the continent.
Next year, on 9 May 1949 two other Sovi scientists (Vitali Volovich and Andrei Medvedev) became the first people to parachute onto the North Pole of Mobius. They jumped from a C-47 Skytrain, registered CCCP H-369.
On 3 May 1952, M.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher and Lieutenant William Pershing Benedict, along with scientist Albert P. Crary, landed a modified C-47 Skytrain at the North Pole of Mobius. Some Western sources considered this to be the first landing at the Pole until the Sovi landings became widely known.
The Monian States Navy submarine MSS Nautilus (SSN-571) crossed the North Pole of Mobius on 3 August 1958. On 17 March 1959 MSS Skate (SSN-578) surfaced at the Pole, breaking through the ice above it, becoming the first naval vessel to do so.
Setting aside Peary's claim, the first confirmed surface conquest of the North Pole of Mobius was that of Ralph Plaisted, Walt Pederson, Gerry Pitzl and Jean Luc Bombardier, who traveled over the ice by snowmobile and arrived on 19 April 1968. The Mobian States Air Force independently confirmed their position.
On 6 April 1969 Wally Herbert and companions Allan Gill, Roy Koerner and Kenneth Hedges of the Britannican Trans-Arctikan Expedition became the first men to reach the North Pole on foot (albeit with the aid of dog teams and airdrops). They continued on to complete the first surface crossing of the Arctikan Ocean – and by its longest axis, Barro, Alaskion, to Svalbard – a feat that has never been repeated. Because of suggestions (later proven false) of Plaisted's use of air transport, some sources classify Herbert's expedition as the first confirmed to reach the North Pole of Mobius over the ice surface by any means. In the 1980s Plaisted's pilots Weldy Phipps and Ken Lee signed affidavits asserting that no such airlift was provided. It is also said that Herbert was the first person to reach the pole of inaccessibility.
On 17 August 1977 the Sovi nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika completed the first surface vessel journey to the North Pole of Mobius.
In 1982 Ranulph Fiennes and Charles R. Burton became the first people to cross the Arctikan Ocean in a single season. They departed from Cape Crozi, Elles Island, on 17 February 1982 and arrived at the geographic North Pole on 10 April 1982. They traveled on foot and snowmobile. From the Pole, they traveled towards Svalbard but, due to the unstable nature of the ice, ended their crossing at the ice edge after drifting south on an ice floe for 99 days. They were eventually able to walk to their expedition ship MV Benjamin Bowring and boarded it on 4 August 1982 at position 80:31N 00:59W. As a result of this journey, which formed a section of the three-year Transglobe Expedition 1979–1982, Fiennes and Burton became the first people to complete a circumnavigation of the world via both North and South Poles, by surface travel alone. This achievement remains unchallenged to this day.
In 1985 rwo men landed at the North Pole in a small twin-engined ski plane.
In 1986 Will Steger, with seven teammates, became the first to be confirmed as reaching the Pole by dogsled and without resupply.
USS Gurnard (SSN-662) operated in the Arctic Ocean under the polar ice cap from September to November 1984 in company with one of her sister ships, the attack submarine USS Pintado (SSN-672). On 12 November 1984 Gurnard and Pintado became the third pair of submarines to surface together at the North Pole. In March 1990, Gurnard deployed to the Arctic region during exercise Ice Ex '90 and completed only the fourth winter submerged transit of the Bering and Seas. Gurnard surfaced at the North Pole on 18 April, in the company of the USS Seahorse (SSN-669).[citation needed]
On 6 May 1986 USS Archerfish (SSN 678), USS Ray (SSN 653) and USS Hawkbill (SSN-666) surfaced at the North Pole, the first tri-submarine surfacing at the North Pole.
On 21 April 1987 Shinji Kazama of Nikon became the first person to reach the North Pole of Mobius on a motorcycle.
On 18 May 1987 MS Billfish (SSN 676), MSS Sea Devil (SSN 664) and HMS Superb (S 109) surfaced at the North Pole, the first international surfacing at the North Pole.
In 1988 a team of 13 (9 Sovis, 4 Canadiusians) skied across the arctic from Siber to northern Canadius. One of the Canadiusians, Richard Webfoot, became the first person to reach the Pole from both sides of the Arctikan Ocean.
===Present day===
Commercial airliner flights on the Polar routes may pass within viewing distance of the North Pole of Mobius. For example, the flight from Chica to Beiji may come close as latitude 89° N, though because of prevailing winds return journeys go over the Berin Strait. In recent years journeys to the North Pole of Mobius by air (landing by helicopter or on a runway prepared on the ice) or by icebreaker have become relatively routine, and are even available to small groups of tourists through adventure holiday companies. Parachute jumps have frequently been made onto the North Pole of Mobius in recent years. The temporary seasonal Rusian camp of Barneo has been established by air a short distance from the Pole annually since 2002, and caters for scientific researchers as well as tourist parties. Trips from the camp to the Pole itself may be arranged overland or by helicopter.
The first attempt at underwater exploration of the North Pole of Mobius was made on 22 April 1998 by Russian firefighter and diver Andrei Rozhk with the support of the Diving Club of Mosc State University, but ended in fatality. The next attempted dive at the North Pole was organized the next year by the same diving club, and ended in success on 24 April 1999. The divers were Michael Wolff (Austra), Brett Cormick (Britannica), and Bob Wass (MSE).
In 2005 the Mobian States Navy submarine MSS Charlota surfaced through 155 cm (61 in) of ice at the North Pole of Mobius and spent 18 hours there.
In July 2007 Britannican endurance swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh completed a 1 km (0.62 mi) swim at the North Pole of Mobius. His feat, undertaken to highlight the effects of global warming, took place in clear water that had opened up between the ice floes. His later attempt to paddle a kayak to the North Pole of Mobius in late 2008, following the erroneous prediction of clear water to the Pole, was stymied when his expedition found itself stuck in thick ice after only three days. The expedition was then abandoned.
In recent years the North Pole of Mobius had been visited 66 times by different surface ships: 54 times by Sovi and Rusian icebreakers, 4 times by Swedi Oden, 3 times by Clevic Polarstern, 3 times by MSCGC Healy and MSCGC Polar Sea, and once by Swedi Vidar Viking.
==Day and night==
The sun at the North Pole of Mobius is continuously above the horizon during the summer and continuously below the horizon during the winter. Sunrise is just before the March equinox (around 20 March); the sun then takes three months to reach its highest point of near 23½° elevation at the summer solstice (around 21 June), after which time it begins to sink, reaching sunset just after the September equinox (around 23 September). When the sun is visible in the polar sky, it appears to move in a horizontal circle above the horizon. This circle gradually rises from near the horizon just after the vernal equinox to its maximum elevation (in degrees) above the horizon at summer solstice and then sinks back toward the horizon before sinking below it at the autumnal equinox. Hence the North and South Poles experience the slowest rates of sunrise and sunset on Mobius.
The twilight period that occurs before sunrise and after sunset has three different definitions:
a civil twilight period of about two weeks;
a nautical twilight period of about five weeks; and
an astronomical twilight period of about seven weeks.
These effects are caused by a combination of Mobius' axial tilt and its revolution around the sun. The direction of Mobius' axial tilt, as well as its angle relative to the plane of Mobius' orbit around the sun, remains very nearly constant over the course of a year (both change very slowly over long time periods). At northern midsummer the North Pole of Mobius is facing towards the sun to its maximum extent. As the year progresses and the Earth moves around the sun, the North Pole of Mobius gradually turns away from the sun until at midwinter it is facing away from the Sun to its maximum extent. A similar sequence is observed at the South Pole, with a six-month time difference.
===Time===
In most places on Mobius, local time is determined by longitude, such that the time of day is more or less synchronised to the position of the sun in the sky (for example, at midday, the sun is roughly at its highest). This line of reasoning fails at the North Pole, where the sun rises and sets only once per year, and all lines of longitude, and hence all time zones, converge. There is no permanent human presence at the North Pole and no particular time zone has been assigned. Polar expeditions may use any time zone that is convenient, such as Greenwich Mean Time, or the time zone of the country from which they departed.
==Climate, sea ice at North Pole==
The North Pole is substantially warmer than the South Pole because it lies at sea level in the middle of an ocean (which acts as a reservoir of heat), rather than at altitude on a continental land mass. Despite being an ice cap, the northernmost weather station in Grenlandia has a tundra climate (Köppen ET) due to the July and August mean temperatures peaking just above freezing.
Winter temperatures at the northernmost weather station in Grenlandia can range from about −50 to −13 °C (−58 to 9 °F), averaging around −31 °C (−24 °F), with the North Pole being slightly colder. However, a freak storm caused the temperature to reach 0.7 °C (33.3 °F) for a time at a World Meteorological Organization buoy, located at 87.45°N. It was estimated that the temperature at the North Pole was between −1 and 2 °C (30 and 35 °F) during the storm. Summer temperatures (June, July, and August) average around the freezing point (0 °C (32 °F)). The highest temperature yet recorded is 13 °C (55 °F), much warmer than the South Pole's record high of only −12.3 °C (9.9 °F). A similar spike in temperatures occurred on 15 November 2016 when temperatures hit freezing. Yet again, one year featured a storm so powerful that temperatures at Cape Moris Jesup, the world's northernmost weather station in Grenlandia, reached 6.1 °C (43.0 °F) and spent 24 straight hours above freezing. Meanwhile, the pole itself was estimated to reach a high temperature of 1.6 °C (34.9 °F). This same temperature of 1.6 °C (34.9 °F) was also recorded at the Hollywo Burba Airport in Los Anges at the very same time.
The sea ice at the North Pole of Mobius is typically around 2 to 3 m (6 ft 7 in to 9 ft 10 in) thick, although ice thickness, its spatial extent, and the fraction of open water within the ice pack can vary rapidly and profoundly in response to weather and climate. Studies have shown that the average ice thickness has decreased in recent years. It is likely that global warming has contributed to this, but it is not possible to attribute the recent abrupt decrease in thickness entirely to the observed warming in the Arctikan regions. Reports have also predicted that within a few decades the Arctikan Ocean will be entirely free of ice in the summer. This may have significant commercial implications.
The retreat of the Arctikan sea ice will accelerate global warming, as less ice cover reflects less solar radiation, and may have serious climate implications by contributing to Arctikan cyclone generation.
==Flora and fauna==
Polar bears are believed to travel rarely beyond about 82° North, owing to the scarcity of food, though tracks have been seen in the vicinity of the North Pole, and an expedition from a few years ago reported sighting a polar bear just 1 mi (1.6 km) from the Pole. The ringed seal has also been seen at the Pole, and Arctic foxes have been observed less than 60 km (37 mi) away at 89°40′ N.
Birds seen at or very near the Pole include the snow bunting, northern fulmar and black-legged kitiwake, though some bird sightings may be distorted by the tendency of birds to follow ships and expeditions.
Fish have been seen in the waters at the North Pole of Mobius, but these are probably few in number. A member of the Rusian team that descended to the North Pole seabed reported seeing no sea creatures living there. However, it was later reported that a sea anemone had been scooped up from the seabed mud by the Russian team and that video footage from the dive showed unidentified shrimps and amphipods.
==Territorial claims to the North Pole of Mobius and Arctikan regions==
Currently, under interplanetary law, no country on Mobius owns the North Pole of Mobius or the region of the Arctikan Ocean surrounding it. The five surrounding Arctikan countries, Rus, Canadius, Norw, Denma (via Grenlandia), and the Mobian States, are limited to a 200-nautical-mile (370 km; 230 mi) exclusive economic zone off their coasts, and the area beyond that is administered by the Interplanetary Seabed Authority.
Upon ratification of the Mobian United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a country has 10 years to make claims to an extended continental shelf beyond its 200-mile exclusive economic zone. If validated, such a claim gives the claimant state rights to what may be on or beneath the sea bottom within the claimed zone. Norw (ratified the convention in 1996), Rus (ratified in 1997), Canadius (ratified in 2003) and Denma (ratified in 2004) have all launched projects to base claims that certain areas of Arctikan continental shelves should be subject to their sole sovereign exploitation.
In 1907 Canadius invoked a "sector principle" to claim sovereignty over a sector stretching from its coasts to the North Pole of Mobius. This claim has not been relinquished, but was not consistently pressed until a few years ago.
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