Did you know the Arctic gets its name from the Greek "arktos" or "arktikos" ("bear" or "near the bear") thanks to the constellation of the Great Bear in the northern sky? The Arctic has far more than a cool name going for it though. Check out how...
- The Arctic has a Unique Caterpillar That Freezes and Thaws Each Year
- The First Map of the Arctic is Over Four Centuries Old (and Hilariously Inaccurate)
- There's a Titanium Flag Sunk Beneath the North Pole
- There's a Town Built on Stilts (to Avoid Melting the "Ground")
- Guano Produces Clouds That Help Keep the Arctic Cool
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| Not as barren as you'd think... (himuraseta) |
The Arctic has a Unique Caterpillar That Freezes and Thaws Each Year
It's undeniable that life in the Arctic is harsh - but some hardy creatures make their home amongst the snow. Perhaps the most unique of these is the woolly-bear caterpillar - an animal that spends most of its life frozen!
There's not much time in the year when this caterpillar can survive life in arctic conditions. It comes out and feeds during the height of the Arctic spring and summer, when temperatures are warmest and there's greenery to eat... then retreats to a burrow and freezes solid for the rest of the year!
So how does the caterpillar survive? The answer lies in an ability to produce glycerol, an antifreeze that keeps the center of their cells liquid while they hibernate.
The caterpillar needs more than a single year to grow. It repeats this freeze-thaw cycle for up to fourteen years (technically making it the longest lived caterpillar in the world) as it grows, eventually emerging as a an Arctic woolly bear moth!
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| Early maps were guesswork... (LittleVisuals) |
The First Map of the Arctic is Over Four Centuries Old (and Hilariously Inaccurate)
Did you know that the first map of the Arctic was the Septentrionalium Terrarum by Gerardus Mercator? It was produced in 1569 - and to say it took liberties with reality would be an incredible understatement.
The map was based upon several sources, pretty much all of which were fairytales. One example would be the Inventio Fortunata, supposedly the journal of a 14th century English friar that had traveled as far as Norway and then pushed on by means of "magical arts."
Based on these "highly reliable" sources, Mercator produced an image of four distinct landmasses surrounding a colossal whirlpool with a massive magnetic rock jutting from the middle. The whirlpool (he claimed) drained water into the very bowels of the Earth. In case that wasn't odd enough, he also claimed that one of the landmasses was inhabited by a race of 4ft tall pygmies.
There's a Titanium Flag Sunk Beneath the North Pole
Despite being called one of the "ends of the Earth" the North Pole doesn't actually have any solid land. The entire region is ocean topped with floating ice - which has made things tricky for countries attempting to stake a territorial claim. In 2007 Russia attempted to get around this by planting a titanium flag on the seabed directly beneath the pole.Plenty of countries think the Arctic should belong to them (which I'm sure has nothing to do with the massive and largely untapped oil, mineral and gas reserves of the area.) The Russian mission used minisubs to gather sediment from the seabed, hoping to show that the Lomonosov ridge beneath the pole connects to the Siberian shelf and is thus part of Russia - the flag was merely a bit of symbolism.
There's a few problems with that theory - for example, the Appalachians of America are from the same formation as the mountains of Scotland... but Scotland doesn't own USA. The other major factor is one of pure practicality - drilling for resources in the Arctic would be both incredibly risky and a logistical nightmare!
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| Not ideal foundations... (Simon) |
There's a Town Built on Stilts (to Avoid Melting the "Ground")
Did you know that Longyearbyen is the furthest north fully-functioning town on Earth? It sits on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard (technically the military installation Alert is further north, but it's not exactly a town.)
Perhaps the strangest thing about Longyearbyen is its construction - plumbing sits above ground and the buildings are built on stilts. There's a good reason for this - the town sits on deep permafrost, meaning that heat from buildings or pipes could melt portions of the "ground." This can in turn cause damage to buildings and pipes as the ice moves, resettles and refreezes
Life in Longyearbyen certainly has its trials - the sun doesn't rise during winter and straying out of the "safety zone" puts visitors at serious risk of polar bear attacks. There's also the fact that the town is at risk from rising Arctic temperatures - the wintertime has warmed 10°C over the past thirty years, with some residents already finding the ice under their homes melting!
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| "I'm doing my part!" (Bob Brewer) |
Have you ever wondered why the Arctic stays frozen during the height of summer? Part of the reason is a blanket of clouds that bounce some sunlight back off into space without it ever reaching the surface. Without that blanket of clouds, the Arctic ocean would be ever so slightly warmer - and more of the ice cap would melt.
In 2016, researchers revealed that the avian inhabitants of the Arctic were boosting cloud coverage - or at least, their guano was.
Many birds in the Artic rely on fish for their food - and as a result, they produce prodigious amounts of ammonia-rich guano. When the guano decays and frees the ammonia, it combines with dimethyl sulphide (released by marine algae) and water to produce inorganic atmospheric particles - which help promote clouds. It's pretty much the same idea as cloud seeding... but using bird droppings!
Areas with lots of guano can produce enough ammonia to counter a watt of sunlight each square meter - and on average the Arctic has enough guano to stop half a watt per square meter. It might not sound like much, but the Arctic covers more than 14 million square km - that's a lot of reflected watts!
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