ARCTIC | GREENLAND | BAFFIN ISLAND
When you look at a globe of our planet, the Arctic Ocean appears as a vast expanse of mostly frozen seawater. This ice-choked ocean of icebergs and pack-ice is surrounded on all sides by a landscape of glacially-carved bays and fjords, cut by just a few significant passages, each of which are critical for the circulation of ocean currents. The landscape is mostly frost-shattered rock and boggy tundra, with trees only inches tall, and carpets of miniature wildflowers that bloom for only a short time in summer under the ephemeral warmth of the midnight sun.
Standing out like a small continent in the high arctic is Greenland, the world’s largest island. More than 80% of Greenland is covered by a rapidly melting icecap, the second largest accumulation of ice after Antarctica. To the west across Baffin Bay and the Davis Strait is Baffin Island, with its dramatic fjords geologically similar to Greenland separated by plate tectonics during the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean over the past 140 million years.
Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic offers a series of exciting itineraries exploring the Arctic region.
When you look at a globe of our planet, the Arctic Ocean appears as a vast expanse of mostly frozen seawater. This ice-choked ocean of icebergs and pack-ice is surrounded on all sides by a landscape of glacially-carved bays and fjords, cut by just a few significant passages, each of which are critical for the circulation of ocean currents. The landscape is mostly frost-shattered rock and boggy tundra, with trees only inches tall, and carpets of miniature wildflowers that bloom for only a short time in summer under the ephemeral warmth of the midnight sun.
Standing out like a small continent in the high arctic is Greenland, the world’s largest island. More than 80% of Greenland is covered by a rapidly melting icecap, the second largest accumulation of ice after Antarctica. To the west across Baffin Bay and the Davis Strait is Baffin Island, with its dramatic fjords geologically similar to Greenland separated by plate tectonics during the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean over the past 140 million years.
Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic offers a series of exciting itineraries exploring the Arctic region.
© Ralph Lee Hopkins
