Arctic Ocean

The smallest and coldest ocean

The Arctic Ocean is at the very top of the Earth, around the North Pole. Most of it is covered in ice in winter. Polar bears walk on the ice here and hunt seals. In winter you can see the northern lights above the ocean — a dance of green and purple colours in the sky!

The Arctic Ocean is the smallest (15.5 million km²) and shallowest ocean, located around the North Pole and almost completely surrounded by land. Unlike Antarctica, there is no continent under the North Pole — only floating sea ice 2–4 m thick. Summer ice extent has shrunk by more than 40% since the 1980s — one of the clearest signs of climate change. The ocean regulates Earth's climate like a 'refrigerator'. Around 4 million people live around it, including Indigenous peoples such as the Inuit, Sámi and Nenets.

Fun facts

• At the North Pole a 'day' lasts a whole year: 6 months of light and 6 months of dark.
• A polar bear's skin is actually black and its fur is transparent — it just looks white.
• The narwhal, the 'sea unicorn', has a 'horn' that is really a 3-metre-long tooth!
• The Lomonosov Ridge runs along the ocean floor — underwater mountains stretching from Russia to Canada.