Animal Facts - Polar Bear
Polar Bear Habitat 2 - More about the Arctic
The Arctic includes the Arctic Ocean which covers the North Pole, and the northern parts of several countries:
- Canada
- Alaska - North America
- Russia
- Finland.
- Sweden
- Norway
- Iceland
- Greenland.
The southern boundary if the Arctic is the Arctic Circle, one of the lines of latitude you see on maps, drawn around the Earth. Lines of longitude are drawn from top to bottom. We use these lines to describe where places are.
There are several types of ice in the Arctic.
Freshwater is frozen on land as glaciers and ice caps or sheets.
The Greenland Ice Cap covers about 80% of the surface of Greenland.
Seawater in the Arctic Ocean is frozen as pack ice, ice floes and icebergs.
Pack ice floats on the ocean, building up in winter and melting slightly in summer. It is thicker at the North Pole and stretches out between the coastlines of the Arctic countries.
Ice floes are large pieces that have broken away and are moved around by the currents.
Ice bergs are very thick “chunks” of ice with most of their depth below the water and a smaller section on the surface.
The land inside the Arctic Circle is covered with tundra. The name tundra may have come from a Finnish word “tunturia” which means “treeless plain.”
The tundra is frozen all year round, except for a top layer of gravelly soil where the ice melts in summer, making small pools and streams.
The soil underneath stays frozen and is called permafrost. Tall trees can’t grow here, but there small stunted ones, along with mosses, lichens and shrubs.