Where is the North Pole?

The North Pole is within 66.5 degrees north latitude (Arctic Circle) of the Earth.

Where is the North Pole? I remember when I was in primary school, the geography teacher taught us to read maps, and I taught a lot. In the end, I only remembered one sentence firmly: "Turn right north, south, left, west and east." When I grew up, I took part in an Antarctic expedition. People ask me where the South Pole is, and I say I've been going south for a long time until I reach the end of the world.

The extent of the arctic region

However, the earth is round. Where is the end for a sphere like the earth? So I thought hard for a long time and finally understood that it was so simple. The south pole is just around, facing the north. Now you have to ask where the North Pole is, that is, the place facing south. Of course, this only refers to the geographical pole, that is, the intersection of the earth's rotation axis and the solid earth's wheat surface. When you stand on a telephone pole, you can proudly claim that you have "traveled around the world" as long as you turn around in the same place.

In addition to being able to "travel around the world" conveniently, people who reach the pole also have a nerve-racking problem, that is, how to determine the time. As we all know, humans divide the earth into different time zones according to the longitude line. Every time zone is 15o, there are 24 time zones in the world, with a difference of 1 hour. According to the agreement, the world's first time zone will start a new day at 0: 00 international international date line, and the international international date line is located at meridian 180o. Countries all over the world generally set their own local time according to the time zone where the capital is located. For example, Beijing started classes at 8: 00 a.m. in September 1, and Paris just entered September 1, which happened to be 1 p.m., and the night was thick; In Washington, DC, people just finished work on August 3 1, went home for dinner and discussed at the dinner table whether the children were ready for school tomorrow. This is called "jet lag"

For the pole, all the meridians of the earth converge to one point, and there is no division of time zones, so the standard of time is lost. This is really a very troublesome thing. Due to the lack of the same standards, the members of the national expedition working in the polar regions have to keep their own local time. Therefore, when we meet foreigners in the Antarctic, we generally don't ask "what time is it", because their answers often make people feel puzzled. An American player once described their softball game in Antarctica as follows: "Little softball flies from today to yesterday, and then from yesterday to today."

In fact, what people usually say about the Arctic is not limited to the Arctic, but refers to the vast area north of 66o 33'' (Arctic Circle), also known as the Arctic region. The arctic region includes the polar arctic ocean, marginal land coastal zones and islands, arctic tundra and the outermost coniferous forest belt. If the Arctic Circle is the boundary of the Arctic, the total area of the Arctic region is 2 1 000 square kilometers, of which the land part accounts for 8 million square kilometers. Some scientists, from the phenological point of view, take the average isotherm in July 10℃ (the ocean is at 5℃) as the southern boundary of the Arctic region. In this way, the total area of the Arctic region has expanded to 27 million square kilometers, of which the land area is about120,000 square kilometers. If the Arctic is defined by the distribution of plant species and all coniferous forest belts are included in the Arctic, the area of the Arctic region will exceed 40 million square kilometers. What is the boundary of the Arctic region? The standards of countries around the Arctic are not uniform, but most people are used to taking the Arctic Circle as the boundary of the Arctic region from a geographical perspective.

Ocean currents in the Arctic Ocean

The soul of snow

The Arctic region belongs to the world of ice and snow, but due to the movement of ocean currents, the sea ice on the surface of the Arctic Ocean has been drifting, cracking and melting, so it is impossible to accumulate thousands of meters of ice and snow like the Antarctic continent for millions of years. Therefore, the total amount of ice and snow in the Arctic is only close to110 in the Antarctic, and most of it is concentrated in the continental ice sheet of Greenland, while the permanent ice and snow in the Arctic Ocean, other islands and surrounding land only accounts for a small part.

Most of the surface of the Arctic Ocean is covered with sea ice all year round, and it is the only white ocean on the earth. The average thickness of the Arctic Ocean sea ice is 3m, covering 73% of the total ocean area in winter, about1000 ~10/10,000 square kilometers, and 53% in summer, about 7.5-8 million square kilometers. The sea ice in the central Arctic Ocean has existed for 3 million years and belongs to permanent sea ice.

Surging waves and accumulated ice

The southern boundary of sea ice is not fixed, and it can often change by hundreds of kilometers with the change of hydrometeorological conditions. Under the action of wind and current, ice floes can pile up and form huge floating icebergs. Most of the icebergs we usually see refer to those huge ice bodies with a diameter of more than 5 meters that have collapsed from the continental shelf or continental ice sheet. The thickness of large-scale platform icebergs can generally reach 200 ~ 300 meters, and the average life span is as long as 4 years. If we are lucky, we can also see a huge iceberg, which is tens of kilometers long, like a piece of white land across the dark gray sea.

Ice mushroom

Floating icebergs formed by sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, together with icebergs formed by glaciers and ice shelves from Greenland and other islands, enter the Atlantic Ocean or Alaska with the current, and some icebergs can drift south to 40 degrees north latitude. 19 12 Titanic, the world's most luxurious passenger ship, crashed into the ice floating in the Arctic Ocean on its maiden voyage and sank, causing the famous "shipwreck in the ice sea" tragedy in the history of world navigation.

Arctic Ocean surface circulation map

Although most of the ocean surface of the Arctic Ocean is covered with ice and snow, the seawater under the ice, like the seawater of other oceans in the world, keeps flowing according to certain rules. If the tide is the pulse of the ocean, then the circulation of the ocean is the life of the ocean. Two currents play a major role in the surface circulation of the Arctic Ocean: one is the Isspitsbergen current, a tributary of the Atlantic Ocean, which enters the Arctic Ocean from the east of Greenland and moves counterclockwise along the edge of the shelf; The other is the trans-polar ocean current (cold water flow at the bottom of East Greenland), which flows in from Chukchi Sea, flows through the Arctic and then flows out from Greenland Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. They control the basic marine hydrological characteristics of the Arctic Ocean, such as water mass distribution and water exchange between the Arctic Ocean and the high seas.

In addition, the role of Norwegian warm current and North Point warm current can not be ignored. According to the latest statistical observation data, the Atlantic Ocean current injects 72,000 cubic kilometers of seawater into the Arctic Ocean, 30,000 cubic kilometers into the North Pacific Ocean and 4,400 cubic kilometers of fresh water into the rivers around the land. In this way, the cold ocean bottom current of the Arctic Ocean must flow into the North Atlantic at an annual scale of 65,438+005,000 cubic kilometers through the Fromm Strait with a depth of 2,700 meters and a width of 450 kilometers. These arctic ocean currents have a great influence on the climate characteristics and ecological environment of the arctic and its surrounding areas.

Islands in the Arctic Ocean

The land area around the Arctic Ocean can be divided into two parts: one is Eurasia, the other is North America and Greenland, and the Bering Strait and Greenland Sea are separated between the two parts. From the geologist's point of view, there are many similarities between these two parts of land, both of which are composed of very old large hidden crust. The age of the Arctic Ocean (oceanic crust) is much younger, and it began to appear at the end of Cretaceous 80 million years ago due to plate expansion.

Alaska's low-lying coast

The coastline of the Arctic Ocean is tortuous and varied, including steep rocky coast and fjord coast, abrasive coast, low-level coast, delta and lagoon coast and composite coast. There are many shallow marginal seas and bays in the vast continental shelf area. There are many islands in the Arctic Ocean, with a total area of about 3.8 million square kilometers, which basically belong to mainland islands in the shelf area. The largest island is Greenland, with an area of 2 1.8 thousand square kilometers, which is larger than the total area of western and central Europe, so some people call it Greenland subcontinent. There are about 60,000 residents in Greenland, 90% of whom are Greenlanders and the rest are mainly Danes. The largest archipelago is Canada's Arctic archipelago, which consists of hundreds of islands with a total area of about 6,543,800 square kilometers. Ellesmere island, the largest island, lies in the northeast. The town of Arel in the north of the island has exceeded 82o north latitude, so it is the starting point of many Arctic explorations.

Ice walls piled up in the Arctic Ocean.

Greenland is not only the largest island on earth, but also an island with most of its area (84%) covered by ice and snow. Greenland's continental glaciers (or ice sheets) cover an area of 6.5438+0.8 million square kilometers, and their average ice thickness reaches 2300 meters, which is close to the average thickness of Antarctic continental ice sheets. Greenland contains 3 million cubic kilometers of ice and snow, accounting for 5.4% of the world's total fresh water. If all the ice and snow in Greenland melt, the global sea level will rise by 7.5 meters. And if all the ice and snow in Antarctica melt, the global sea level will rise by 66 meters.

In Greenland's vast white cold world, snowfall can't melt, so it accumulates year after year. The fresh snow is soft, weighing 100 kg per cubic meter. In fact, there are not many opportunities for new snow to fall directly on the ice. Due to the strong wind all the year round, hexagonal snowflakes fly and collide in the wind, gradually grinding away the edges and corners, turning into snow like cement powder, and falling on the ice with the wind, forming a snowstorm. The density of snow and wind is greater than that of fresh snow, weighing 400 kilograms per cubic meter. Snowfall is covered by layers. With the increase of depth and pressure, new snow gradually becomes granular snow composed of fine snow particles. At the depth of 70 ~ 100 m, snow crystals fuse with each other, and the air between snow crystal particles is compressed into independent small bubbles, which become white bubble ice, or new ice, and the density of new ice reaches 820 kg per cubic meter. When the burial depth exceeds 1200m, the huge pressure makes the bubbles in the new ice disappear, gas molecules enter the crystal lattice of ice crystals, and tiny ice crystals quickly fuse and expand into huge single crystals (the maximum diameter can reach 10c m), and finally blue hard old ice is formed, also known as Lan Bing. Lan Bing, covered with white snow, granular snow and new ice, constitutes the main body of the continental ice sheet. Moreover, the deeper the ice, the longer it takes to form. It is estimated that the age of the deepest ice layer in Greenland ice sheet can reach hundreds of thousands of years or even 1 10,000 years.

The trail of the strong wind

Like the Antarctic, the vast ice fields on the land and islands in the Arctic region look distant and quiet, and seem to represent some kind of eternal stillness. But in fact, due to the weight of ice and snow, the land ice sheet keeps moving to the coast, and it is deep, slow and unstoppable. The average annual moving speed of the inland ice sheet in Greenland is several meters, while the coastal area can reach 100 ~ 200 meters. As for those huge glaciers, they move much faster. The so-called glacier is actually a river of ice and snow. Billions to tens of billions of tons of ice and snow are quietly pushed, rubbed and moved in valleys or lowlands where glaciers flow. They slowly but indomitable to the sea, and finally earth-shattering collapse into the sea. The ice sheet moved and finally collapsed, forming huge icebergs in the sea. Only in this way, Greenland's land ice sheet loses 150 cubic kilometers of ice every year. On the other hand, the total annual snowfall and ice accumulation in Greenland is about 170 cubic kilometers. But as in Antarctica, so far, scientists are not sure whether the continental ice sheet in Greenland is slowly growing or dying.

The climate of the Arctic

Winter in the Arctic Ocean lasts for six months from June 1 1 to April of the following year. May, June, September and 65438+ October belong to spring and autumn. In summer, it only lasts for seven or eight months. The average temperature in June+10/October in 5438 was between-20 and-40℃. The average temperature in the warmest August is only MINUS 8 degrees. The lowest temperature measured at the drifting station near the pole of the Arctic Ocean is -59℃. Due to the influence of ocean currents and Arctic anticyclones, the coldest place in the Arctic is not in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. The lowest temperature was recorded at -70℃ in Jansk, Vilho, Siberia, and at -62℃ in Alaska.

The closer to the pole, the more obvious the meteorological and climatic characteristics of the polar region. There is only one day and one night a year. Even in midsummer, the sun just hangs on the distant southern horizon, with a bleak white light. The sun never rises above 23.5 degrees. It moves slowly around this endless white world. A few months later, the sun's trajectory gradually approached the horizon, so the evening season in the Arctic began.

Arctic Ocean Spring

Many photographers yearn for the rich colors and magnificent scenery of sunrise and sunset. They often wait for many days before they can seize precious seconds and take the most beautiful photos. If they come to the North Pole, how easy it will be to capture the beautiful scenery of sunrise and sunset. Because here, every dawn or dusk can last for a month or two, which is enough time for photographers to seize the opportunity carefully and take the best photos. The whole autumn here is a dusk, followed by a long night. It is cold and lonely at night, and the dark night sky can last for five or six months. It was not until March and April of the following year that light gradually appeared on the horizon, and the sun slowly and slowly revealed its face along an almost horizontal trajectory-the dawn of the new year in the Arctic began.

Generally speaking, the average wind speed in the Arctic is much less than that in the Antarctic. Even in winter, the average wind speed along the coast of the Arctic Ocean is only 65,438+00 m/s ... Especially in northern Europe, it is mainly controlled by the warm current from the north point, and the water surface temperature keeps between 2 ~ 12℃ all year round. Even Murmansk, located at 69 north latitude, is a famous ice-free port. In that area, even in winter, strong winds above 15m/s are rare. However, due to the cold high pressure in Greenland, North America and northern Eurasia in winter, violent snowstorms often occur in the Arctic Ocean. The precipitation in the Arctic is generally much higher than that in the Antarctic inland. Generally, the annual precipitation is between100 and 250 mm, and the annual precipitation in Greenland reaches 500 mm

Ancient China people were in the North Pole.

After the ancient Eskimos migrated to the north, the ancient civilizations developed in the middle and low latitudes gradually began to think about what the world they lived in was like. The oldest map found in the world today is the clay map of Babylon excavated by archaeologists. This painting depicts the world of Babylon before 2800 BC. A circular river surrounds the circular earth, and Babylon is at the center of the world.

The ancient Chinese nation also experienced the stage of "taking me as the center". Han people worshipped Xuanyuan Huangdi as their ancestors, and then there was a big flood. His grandson Gun stole "fallow soil" from the Emperor of Heaven to control water for the people, and was killed by the Emperor of Heaven before his career was finished. Gun's son, Yu, continued to complete his father's career, which is what is said in the famous story of "Dayu controlling water". However, Dayu in China mythology is not only a hero who manages water for the people, but also an explorer who travels around the world. After the completion of the water control project, Dayu sent Tai Zhang Shen to explore the earth with his footsteps. Tai Zhang walked from the East Pole to the West Pole, measuring 23.35 Wan Li, with 75 steps. Dayu also sent Shu Hai, the God of Heaven, from the North Pole to the South Pole to measure the earth with a bamboo piece "suan" about 6 inches long. The result is exactly the same as the distance between east and west. It can be seen that the earth where people live should be square, and they are in the middle of a square earth surrounded by four seas, so they logically call themselves the "central country", that is, China.

Later, Dayu personally explored the horizon and carried out diplomatic activities by the way. He has been to the "Fusang" in the east, where the sun rises; I've been to Yuan Ye, Jin Jiu and Qingqiang, and I've climbed mountains with the nine-tailed fox and been to Niaogu Township, Heichi Township and Qingqiu Township. He went south, crossed the extremely hot Jiuyang Mountain, and arrived at Feather Country, Naked Republic of China and Undead Country. To the west, I have been to the "Three Dangers Mountain Country" where the Queen Mother Sanqingniao lives, and I have seen people who only drink dew and don't eat whole grains. I have also been to the "Golden Mountain" full of gold, and I have seen "strange brain people" and "people with one arm and three faces". I've been to the "Lingzhengguo" and "Canrongguo" in the north, and I've been to Yujiang over Jishishan. Yujiang is also a sea god and a wind god. After saying goodbye to Yujiang, Dayu planned to go home, but he got lost in the snowstorm. Instead, he went further and further north, and finally he came to a place called "Eventually Northland". This "The Last arctic blue" may be the first and only written record of China's Arctic exploration. Although this record comes from fairy tales, although Dayu's footprint may not have reached the shore of the Arctic Ocean at that time, it is an impressive stroke related to the Arctic in the 5,000-year civilization history of the Chinese people.

The ancient Greeks were in the North Pole.

Most historians believe that civilized human beings turned their eyes to the North Pole, starting from ancient Greece at the earliest.

Because it is said that the Arctic Circle was first determined by the ancient Greeks. They found that the stars in the sky can be divided into two groups. One group is in the north of the world and can be seen all year round. The other group is near the zenith and the south, and they only appear periodically with the seasons. The dividing line between the two groups of stars is the circle drawn by Ursa Major, which happens to be the latitude circle of 66 33' north latitude, that is, the Arctic Circle.

In fact, Pythagoras (582-500 BC) and his school extremely despised the statement that the earth is square or rectangular, and their philosophical thoughts convinced them that the earth is perfect only if it is spherical, so as to meet the needs of "cosmic harmony" and "number".

Plato's student Aristotle (384 ~ 322 BC) laid the foundation of the concept of "earth". He even considered that there should be a continent in the southern hemisphere in order to balance the vast land in the northern hemisphere. Moreover, in order to avoid the embarrassing situation that the earth is "top-heavy" and its big head (North Pole) is facing down, the area around the North Pole should be a relatively light ocean.

So, more than 2000 years ago, a Greek named Bizeas bravely set sail and began the first impact of civilized human beings on the Arctic. It took him about six years to complete the voyage, and he reached Iceland or central Norway as far north as possible, possibly entering the Arctic Circle. In 325 BC, Bezias returned to Marseille (now Marseille).

Discoveries in Iceland and Greenland

After Bizeus 1200, in 870 AD, an ancient Scandinavian nobleman named Otta bypassed the northernmost cape of Scandinavia for the first time, bypassed kola peninsula and entered the White Sea. At about the same time as Ota, a Norwegian named Loki was sent to the northwest to find a new continent and discovered Iceland.

The discoverer of Greenland was a Norwegian pirate named Eric the Red Face. He was deported after two consecutive murders in Iceland, which was then under Norwegian jurisdiction. In the case of no choice, he had to pack his family and everything into a small boat without a canopy, and with a glimmer of hope, he crustily skin of head and rowed westward. After a rather difficult voyage, he finally saw a piece of land. At that time, the climate was at the best stage of the global mini-warm period (called "medieval warm period" by Europeans), which might make a high-latitude area like Greenland a suitable environment for life. Eric the Red Face lived there for three years and thought it was a good land, so he decided to go back to Iceland to recruit immigrants. In order to make this place sound more attractive, he gave a nice name, Greenland, a green land. Of course, at that time, the summer in the southern coastal areas of Greenland was probably really green. Sure enough, groups of immigrants came across the sea with their property and livestock.

Since then, Greenland has flourished. At the peak, there were more than 280 residential areas with thousands of people, 17 churches. Not only did he establish trade relations with Europe, but the Pope even sent someone to collect parish taxes.

However, 500 years later, around 1500, with the world climate fluctuating again (entering the Little Ice Age), the weather there became cold, so this once prosperous paradise gradually entered a state of silence. This period of human activities in the Arctic can be called spontaneous regional discovery period.

Arctic route period

-Discovery of northeast and northwest routes in the Arctic Ocean

Kyle Poirot's trip to China convinced westerners that China is a paradise on earth with arachis duranensis, mountains of jewels and clouds of beautiful women. As a result, westerners began to look for the shortest route to China-the Maritime Silk Road. At that time, Europeans thought that as long as they sailed north from the Norwegian Sea and then sailed east or west along the coast, they would surely reach China in the east. Therefore, the history of Arctic exploration in the Middle Ages is closely related to the discovery of the northeast and northwest routes of the Arctic Ocean.

1500, Portuguese brother Courtrell sailed north to Newfoundland along the west coast of Europe. The next year, they continued to go north, hoping to find a way to China, but it was gone forever. They became the first explorers who died for the "Northwest Route".

From 1594, the Dutchman Barents started his three arctic blue. 1596, he not only discovered the island of Spitsbergen, but also reached the place of 79 49'' north latitude, setting a new record for human beings to move northward and becoming the first European to spend the winter in the Arctic. 1597 On June 20th, Barents, who was only 37 years old, died of hunger, cold and fatigue on a floating ice block.

16 10, an Englishman Hudson, who was employed by a commercial exploration company, launched an attack on the northwest channel with his ship Discovery, and they later arrived at the bay named after Hudson. Unfortunately, of the 22 explorers, 9 were frozen to death, 5 were killed by Eskimos, 1 died of illness, and only 7 returned to England alive.

16 16 In the spring, Eight Commanders Xiao Discovery went north again. This is the fifth time/kloc-0 that the ship entered the unknown waters in the northwest and found the open Baffin Bay.

1725 65438+ 10, Peter the Great appointed Bering, a Danish, as the captain of the Russian expedition, and completed the arduous task of "determining whether Asia and America are connected". Bering and his 25 members left Petersburg, crossed Russia from west to east, traveled more than 8,000 kilometers, and arrived at the Pacific coast. Then, they boarded a ship from there and sailed northwest. In the following 17 years, Bering completed two extremely difficult explorations. On his first voyage, he drew a map of kamchatka peninsula and successfully passed the waterway between Alaska and Siberia, which is now the Bering Strait. On his second voyage from 1739, he reached the west coast of North America and discovered the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. It was because of his discovery that Russia's territorial claim to Alaska was recognized. However, more than1000 people died in these two expeditions, including Bering himself.

18 19 captain parry, an Englishman, insisted on rushing into the frozen arctic waters in winter and almost got through the northwest passage. Although they failed, they found an extremely important fact, that is, the Arctic ice sheet is constantly moving. They walked on the ice floe for 6 1 day, worked hard and walked 1600 km. In fact, they only advanced 270 km. This is because the ice sheets are moving in the opposite direction to them. When they travel north, the ice sheet will take them to the south. As a result, they only reached 82o45' north latitude.

1 831June1day, the famous British explorers john ross and james ross discovered the north magnetic pole.

On May 1845 and 19, the Admiralty of the British Empire sent Sir sir john franklin, an experienced Arctic explorer, to start his third voyage to the Arctic. The whole team 129 people died of hunger, cold and illness after more than three years of arduous trekking. This lifeless expedition is the greatest tragedy in the history of Arctic exploration, but Sir Franklin's heroic behavior and dedication have greatly admired future generations.

1878, the Finnish Swedish navy captain Louis Pan Langdell led a 30-member international expedition, which was composed of Russian, Danish and Italian naval personnel. Four exploration ships, including Vega, first opened the northeast route.

1905, Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer who later conquered the Antarctic, successfully opened the northwest route. Their success brought a successful conclusion to the efforts to find the way to the East in the Arctic.

However, these successes, which were bought at a very heavy price, did not bring much joy to mankind. Because the voyage across the Arctic Ocean is so difficult, it has no commercial value. This expedition, which lasted for about 400 years, opened up the northeast route and northwest route, which we can call the Arctic route period.

The climate of the Arctic

The Arctic has endless ice and snow and a long winter. The North Pole, like the South Pole, has extreme days and nights, and the closer you get to the North Pole, the more obvious it is.

Winter in the Arctic is long, cold and dark. From165438+1October 23rd every year, there will be days when the sun can't be seen at all for nearly half a year. The temperature will drop to MINUS 50 degrees Celsius. At this time, all the waves and tides disappeared, because the coast was frozen, and only the wind swept around wrapped in snow.

In April, the weather gradually warmed up, the ice and snow gradually melted, and large pieces of ice began to melt, break and collide, making a loud noise; The stream seems to be gurgling; The sky becomes bright and the sun shines on the earth.

In May and June, plants are covered with the green of life, and animals become active and busy reproducing. In this season, animals can get enough food and accumulate enough nutrition and fat to spend the long winter.

Autumn in the Arctic is very short. In early September, the first snowstorm is coming. The arctic soon returned to the cold and dark winter.

In the Arctic, the sun will never rise high in the sky, even in midsummer, its rising angle will not exceed 23.5 degrees. The annual precipitation in the Arctic is generally 100-250 mm, and it can reach 500 mm in Greenland. Precipitation is concentrated in offshore land, and the most important form is summer rain.