Did you know some people don’t even consider the Arctic ocean to be a real ocean? They call is the Arctic Sea. Arctic Ocean is the smallest of all the oceans of the world and is frozen for most part of the year. To me, it has always seemed most fascinating, partly because it is so difficult and out of the way that you probably wouldn’t stumble upon it by accident. You will need to take time of your routine and actively seek the opportunity to go visit the Arctic Ocean.
One such opportunity presented itself when we learnt that Tana Husky (the place where we were going for our husky ride), was mere 30 kms from one of the Fjords of the Arctic Ocean. But since it was January and we had limited amount of daylight, the trip depended upon whether there would be any daylight left after the sledding. Luckily, there was!
So I requested our nice guide Emilia to please drive us to the fjord and help me fulfill my dream of touching the Arctic Ocean and she obliged. We reached there as the daylight was just at its end and drove straight to the beach – well, is it still a beach if its entirely covered with ice?
We saw something else pretty weird. The entire ocean was smoking. There was columns of smoke rising form the surface of the ocean and going up and mingling into the clouds. So that is what was causing the cloudy weather! And here I was wondering how are there clouds when the temperature is -35 degrees! I did’t know about the phenomenon till then. When I googled it, I found out that its called “Sea Smoking.” And its something that can only happen above the arctic circle on bodies of water that are not yet frozen! WOW!
Sea smoking happens when the weather is too cold but the ocean surface is warm enough such that when the cold air comes in contact with the warm air around the surface, it condenses the water vapor of the warm air and forms a fog. Okay, maybe I didn’t explain it well enough. You can go here to read about it!
