on earth a very special territory: the northernmost edge of the northern part of Asia and the Americas, as well as the island territory in the Arctic, the polar boundaries enclosed belt.
What is the area of the Arctic wilderness?First of all, this special climate where there is no clear division into seasons.There simply is winter, which is characterized by polar night with temperature control, fluctuating between ten and fifty degrees with a minus sign, and very short summers with the polar day and temperatures below the zero mark on the thermometer.
arctic desert zone has a specific terrain: the snow and ice cover large island area.The archipelago of Franz Josef covered with ice at the eighty-seven per cent, the northern island of Novaya Zemlya - forty percent, and the island Ushakov almost completely icebound.Severnaya Zemlya (island) to forty-five per cent is covered by twenty-two ice shields.
in the zone arctic desert Russia includes the area from the northern most point (Franz Josef Land) to the extreme south (Wrangel Island), the island of Novaya Zemlya, the New Siberian Islands, the Northern lands, the outskirts of the Taimyr Peninsula and the Arctic seas located within this area.
zone arctic desert is covered with snow and icebound all year round.Precipitation falls here very rarely.Their annual rate equal to 200-300 millimeters, and they are represented mainly by snow and frost.The climate is arctic desert exacerbated by strong winds, frequent fogs and high clouds.
relief of the islands largely similar.It is a flat plain on the coastal areas and high mountains in the domestic sector.Monotonous flat terrain is characteristic only of the New Siberian Islands.On the islands of the Arctic territory of the former Soviet Union, almost fifty-six thousand square meters of area is the area of icing.Ice sheet thickness of the New Earth is three hundred, Severnaya Zemlya - two hundred and Franz Josef Land - a hundred meters.Maximum capacity of permafrost (north of the Taimyr Peninsula) exceeds five hundred meters.
What may surprise arctic desert zone in terms of vegetation?Well, it is surprising the very fact of having such a permafrost.Absolutely, this area is called the desert, as flora is poor and monotonous.The vegetation cover is torn, and the overall coverage does not exceed sixty-five percent.And the interior of the island (mountain peaks, slopes) covered no more than three percent.Vegetation in this region is represented by mosses, lichens (mainly crustose) algae.Flowering plants of the Arctic are represented blackgrass Alpine, Arctic pickerel, buttercup, kamenolomkoy snow, polar poppy.Three hundred and fifty species of higher plants are Arctic island flora, the nature of which is significantly different in the northern part of the south.
If the northern part of the Taimyr Peninsula is characterized by grass-moss Arctic desert, to the south - the New Siberian Islands - is replaced in the impoverished desert shrub-moss with the advent of the polar willow and saxifrage.But ice area south represented as shrub-moss Arctic desert - this is a well-developed shrub layer polar and arctic willow and Dryads.
Due to the low productivity of vegetation wildlife zone arctic desert is very poor: lemmings and Arctic foxes, polar bears and some where reindeer, walruses and seals.In Greenland, you can meet the musk ox.Rocky coast in the summer - a place of colonial nesting seabirds.Loon and seagull, guillemot and black guillemot, goose and of course, snowy owl represents the kingdom of birds living in the most difficult conditions, the icy wilderness.
