Let’s now further recognize that the Arctic Ocean is puny, at 1.4% of the total Earthly
volume of oceanic water. It ranks a little better in terms of its surface extent, being 4.3 % of
Earth’s total oceanic surface area, but because so much of the Arctic Ocean is shallow,
landward of the 100-m isobath, its volumetric representation falls.
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Another look at all the planet’s water sorted into compartments: If we looked at the
proportion of the world’s sea water contained in the Arctic Ocean, it is a little less (1.4%)
than that of the 1.76% of water bound up in ice caps and permanent snowfields.
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On the other hand…
“Large freshwater contributions to the Arctic Ocean from a variety of sources combine in
what is, by global standards, a remarkably small ocean basin. Indeed, the Arctic Ocean
receives ∼11% of global river discharge while accounting for only ∼1% of global ocean
volume.”
“Fig. 1The pan-Arctic drainage basin and major freshwater inflows (cubic kilometers per
year, as shown in boxes) to the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas. Red line watershed
boundary, A Hudson Bay, B Beaufort Sea, C Chukchi Sea, D East Siberian Sea, E Laptev
Sea, F Kara Sea, G Barents Sea. Inputs from land were calculated from the regional runoff
estimates of Lammers et al. (2001). The 2,500 km3/year input to the Chukchi Sea is the
freshwater content of Bering Sea water flowing into the Arctic Ocean via Bering Strait
based on a reference salinity of 34.8 (Serreze et al., 2006).”
(Source: McClelland, J.W., Holmes, R.M., Dunton, K.H. et al. Estuaries and Coasts (2012)
35: 353. doi:10.1007/s12237-010-9357-3)
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The total annual input of fresh water into the Arctic Ocean is estimated to be 6,675 km3, or
1,600 mi3. This volume is only—underscore ONLY—a little over 3 times the volume of
water released in one of the catastrophic Spokane, or Bretz, floods through the Columbia
River watershed. A number, possibly as many as 50, such floods are thought to have
occurred between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago when the freshwater impoundment known as
Lake Missoula broke through a glacial dam in what is now Idaho.
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So, although the Arctic Ocean makes up only 1.4 % of the volume of the world’s oceans, it
receives about 11 % of the world’s freshwater runoff into all of the oceans. That
disproportionate runoff gives the Arctic Ocean a unique set of characteristics, and
historically contributes to its disproportionately forbidding qualities. Today, we are
increasingly aware that the Arctic Ocean and the lands surrounding it are disproportionately
affected by global climate changes underway.
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A sense of perspective, however, needs also to include the dimensions of the passage of
time, with the occupation of space, and with who gets to lay claim to being the first one
there or the first observer to puzzle over a new experience.
After the Greeks, the Romans showed comparatively little interest in exploration of the
earth and its oceans. The Norse had a good run for several centuries, raiding and exploiting
outposts of the Holy Roman Empire from the late 8th century until the early 14th century.
Our image of the Norse as disruptive pillagers is rather Euro-centric, and focuses on their
ability to navigate and plunder coastal and riverbank communities with variants of the
human propelled Norse longboat.
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We tend to think of the New World having been discovered by an Italian, funded by the
Spanish throne at the end of the 15th Century. In fact, Norse, or Vikings, had sailed to the
New World, repaired their ships in shipyards (using bog iron foundries to fashion nails) and
sailed back again to their Greenlandic and Icelandic colonies, almost 500 years before
Columbus sailed to the Caribbean islands and back. The Inuit marine mammal culture
apparently beat the Norse into the New World from the west by several millennia, but only
seems to have arrived in Greenland at about the same time as the Norse.
When we apply a passage-of-time perspective to history, we are struck that despite
representing a puny share of the planet’s volume of water, the Arctic Ocean held most
humans at bay until relatively recently in our species’ history..
Norse long-distance seamanship and navigation actually depended on a significantly
different ship design than that of the longboat, and its superior open ocean handling
capabilities.
18
John Huth’s (2013) book, shown here, is a delightful exploration of “finding our way,” and a
reminder that much of that capability is now as alien to the “smartphone” generations.
The Norse longboat was not as good a seafaring design as the Norse knarr, Huth points out.
The knarrs were wider in the beam, thus less likely to roll, i.e., more capable of remaining
upright, than the narrow longboats. The knarrs could also sail “closer to the wind” once the
sailors invented the beitass or beat stick to stiffen the leading edge of the square sail.
Incidentally, this image shows the steering oar in its customary position on the right side of
the knarr, before stern-mounted rudders were fashionable. Our English designation
“starboard” is a borrowed term from Old Norse, Starbord, or ‘steer side’
19
From our northern polar, and Arctic Oceanic perspective, three objectives have long drawn
upon energy, daring, imagination, and even scoundrel-ous, behavior.
First, there were two desirable shortcuts from Eurasia to the “Far East”— First, #1. the
Northwest Passage and second #2. the Northeast Passage—by which northern Europeans
yearned to reach the Orient, without the necessity of crossing the Equator twice to
circumnavigate South America (NW), or twice to circumnavigate Africa (NE).
Later, #3. the attainment of the Geographic North Pole (90° N) captured explorers’ and
adventurers’ imaginations.
20
There are a number of dimensions to the stories behind the SS Manhattan’s brief period in
the spotlight in 1969-1970.
After the discovery of Prudhoe Bay petroleum reserves in 1967 (announced in 1968),
Humble Oil & Refining led the way in considering alternatives to transporting oil by
pipeline to the open tidewater port of Valdez.
This competition between strategies lasted a brief time, just long enough to allow engineers,
sailors, scientists, and (finally, much later, the public) a good look at a successful transit of
the most challenging sections of the Northwest Passage.
The stories behind two voyages by the world’s first supertanker into and through the
challenging sea ice environment were largely rescued from oblivion by Ross Coen, when he
was a Master’s Degree student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
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Here’s a good, but significantly incomplete, summary of the historical attempts at the
Northeast Passage, the Northwest Passage and the North Pole itself in our puny Arctic
Ocean.
Let’s go from up-and down-ward exercises in perspectives, to rebuilding an appreciation
for the importance of the Arctic Ocean in stages of ocean exploration.
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