Mrs. Simon
English 7H
6 March 2017
The Arctic Ocean A landscape of bright and shiny ice lies ahead, getting closer every moment. Life by the millions thrives under your ship. Welcome to the Arctic Ocean. The Arctic Ocean is located in the Northern Hemisphere. polardicovery.whoi.edu says, "Greenland, Spitzpergen, Alaska, Canada, Norway, and Russia surround it. It used to be called the Frozen Ocean." The Arctic Ocean, over 5,400,000 miles in area, is a very important habitat. It has lots of animal and plant life, but people have made some negative impacts on the area. Luckily, there are solutions in place and conservations to preserve this magnificent creation. The Arctic is a beautiful place, and also very important to us. The Arctic is smaller than any other ocean in the world. Almost the whole habitat is covered in ice. There are three different types of ice in the Arctic Ocean habitat: polar ice, fast ice, and pack ice. softschools.com says, "Polar ice doesn't melt, and it can even be just two meters thick in the summer, but 50 meters thick in the winter." The ice at the edge of polar ice is pack ice, and it only freezes fully in the winter. Fast ice is the ice that only forms during winter around pack ice and land around the Arctic Ocean. The deepest parts of the water in the Arctic Ocean is 18,050 feet, but the average depth of the ocean is only 3,240 feet. There are 3 different submarine ridges on the floor off the Arctic Ocean: the alpha ridge, the lomonosov ridge, and the arctic mid. The Arctic Ocean effects our everyday lives, and it is very important. It keeps our polar areas cool. nsidc.org says, "The Arctic Ocean helps level out global climate." 80% of the sunlight that strikes the Arctic Ocean is reflected back into space, but as …show more content…
The Arctic poppy is about 10-15 centimeters tall, and it has one flower for each stem that it grows. These flowers follow the sun, and absorb energy. arkive.org says the scientific name for Arctic poppy is papaver radicatum. Arctic poppies grow much more to the north than most other plants. The Arctic poopy is also known as the rooted poppy or the yellow poppy. It also attracts insects to it's center. Some Arctic poppies have white flowers instead of yellow. They are actually very tough, and their stems are hairy. It adapts to its habitat in many ways. It is covered in black hairs, and those hairs could be a sign warning animals not to come close to it. The white poppies adapted to the Arctic because they can camouflage with the white ice and snow. These poppies also adapted to growing on rocks, so much that the rock makes the poppy's roots moist. Lichens are very important to many animals in the Arctic. They grow in mats, on the ground, and on rocks all over the Arctic. Lichens make sure that the caribou and other animals have food. marinebio.net says that they come in many different colors like orange and very pale green. Lichens live by algae providing food and fungus providing water. The algae wouldn't survive without the water from the fungus, and vice versa. Lichens take up 8% of our Earth's surface. Let's keep these amazing animals and this glorious