North pole where is it

The North Pole is situated somewhere in the Arctic Ocean ; thus, it is surrounded by a mass of water. The Arctic Ocean contains nearly permanent sea ice that is continuously drifting.

The depth of the water in the Arctic Ocean is about 13, feet while the ice is feet thick. The continually moving sea ice has made it difficult to create a permanent station for the North Pole. No country has ownership over the North Pole. It is located in international waters and is governed by the International Seabed Authority. The Arctic region in general, however, is the subject of a fierce territorial debate between the United States, Canada, Russia, Norway, and Denmark, which owns the Arctic Circle-bordering Greenland, according to Bloomberg.

As you can probably guess, it's cold. Temperatures in the summer can reach, on average, around 32 degrees Fahrenheit — the freezing point of water. By Christmas time, temperatures drop much lower to around negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit on average. The North Pole is a land of extremes.

A few ringed seals have been spotted. Ringed seals are common prey of the polar bears that wander into the region. Larger marine mammal s, such as narwhal whales, are much more rare.

Several species of fish live at the North Pole. Arctic cod are the most abundant. Arctic cod are small fish usually found near the seafloor, close to their food sources—tiny shrimp and crustaceans. Birds are frequent visitors to the North Pole. The Arctic tern, which has the longest annual migration of any species on the planet, spends its spring and summer in the Arctic, though rarely as far north as the North Pole.

It then flies 30, kilometers 18, miles south, to the Antarctic Circle. The Arctic tern makes an Arctic-Antarctic round-trip migration every year. Like the Arctic tern, all other birds spotted near the North Pole are migratory. They include the small snow bunting and gull-like fulmars and kittiwakes. Exploration Major polar exploration began in the 19th century.

Norwegian explorer s Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen attempted a land-based expedition in A Swedish expedition led by Salomon August Andree tried to fly over the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon two years later. Cook was unable to provide any navigational records of his achievement, however, and rest of his team later reported that they did not quite reach the pole. The claim remains controversial.

Peary was supported and funded by the National Geographic Society , which verified his claim. It has been in dispute ever since. Although Peary's North Pole team included four other people, none of them were trained in navigation.

They were therefore unable to verify Peary's claims, and one of them, Matthew Henson, reported a conflicting route from Peary. Peary himself never made his navigational records available for review. Skeptics have noted the remarkable speed with which the expedition traveled once Capt. Bob Bartlett, the only other navigator, left the crew. Peary reported more than doubling the amount of territory covered daily as soon as Bartlett left the expedition.

Nonetheless, many explorers support Peary's claims. National Geographic conducted extensive studies of the photographs Peary took, and concluded they were taken within 8 kilometers 5 miles of the pole.

The photographs themselves have never been made public. Depth soundings taken by Peary and Henson also seem to support their claim to have reached the pole. Perhaps the most important support for Peary's claim came from British explorer Tom Avery's polar expedition of Avery mimic ked Peary's supposed route, using sled dog teams.

The expedition successfully reached the North Pole. The first verified expedition to the North Pole was conducted by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen in Amundsen did not use a ship or dogsleds—he flew over the pole on the airship Norge. The Norge , lifted by hydrogen and powered by a diesel engine, flew over the North Pole on its route from the Norwegian Arctic to the U.

The first people verified to have set foot at the North Pole were a research group of geologist s and oceanographer s from the Soviet Union in The scientists were flown in and out of the pole over a three-day period. Another U. The first verified expeditions to reach the North Pole by foot didn't happen until the late s. A team led by American explorer Ralph Plaisted used snowmobiles to reach the pole in Over the years, the controversy simmered. However, new research in revealed that Peary's claim might have been suspect.

Questionable elements of his claim included: the lack of navigational experience on his team; the fact that after the one person who had navigational experience left the team, they reported traveling at twice the speed; that one member's route description differed from Peary's; and that Peary never made his records available for review.

In , British explorer Tom Avery mimicked Peary's route using dog sleds, and reached the pole, suggesting that Peary's records might have been accurate. The Peary vs. Cook debate remains controversial to this day.

Since the days of Peary and Cook, many expeditions to the North Pole have taken place by plane, by foot and by dog sled. The National Geographic Society, one of his sponsors, confirmed the accomplishment.

Byrd was hailed as a hero, given the Medal of Honor and went on to fly over the South Pole, as well as achieving many other polar expedition milestones. However, Byrd's accomplishment was questioned almost immediately. Many did not think his airplane could have covered the distance in just 15 hours and 44 minutes, as he had recorded. New research, published in the January issue of the journal Polar Record, suggests that Byrd fell short of his North Pole goal by as much as 80 miles km.

The first verifiable, convincing expedition to the pole is credited to Roald Amundsen, an intrepid Norwegian explorer. In , Amundsen led the first expedition to cross the Northwest Passage. In , Amundsen was the first person to reach the South Pole. And in May just a few days after Byrd's flight , Amundsen flew — or rather, floated — over the pole in a dirigible, the Norge, with 15 other men. May 1, The first expedition to reach the pole on foot without resupply includes Ann Bancroft, the first woman to travel to the pole.

His feat, accomplished wearing only a swim brief, was done to draw public attention to the melting ice caps. Currently, no country owns the North Pole. It sits in international waters. The closest land is Canadian territory Nunavut, followed by Greenland part of the Kingdom of Denmark. However, Russia, Denmark and Canada have staked claims to the mountainous Lomonosov Ridge that runs under the pole.

The Arctic is rich in natural resources, including oil and gas, and valuable as a shipping route, making it of high importance to countries with Arctic coasts. In , Russia sent the first submersible to reach the seabed under the North Pole, and dropped a titanium flag there — much to the displeasure of the other Arctic countries.