noun
definition
A warm waterproof overshoe.
definition
Any of various butterflies of the genus Oeneis.
adjective
definition
(now only in compounds) Pertaining to the celestial north pole, or to the pole star.
definition
Pertaining to the northern polar region of the planet, characterised by extreme cold and an icy landscape.
definition
Extremely cold, snowy, or having other properties of extreme winter associated with the Arctic.
definition
Designed for use in very cold conditions.
Examples of arctic in a Sentence
His skin was colder than snow, the power radiating off him like an arctic breeze.
It is continuous round the pole and roughly is bounded by the arctic circle.
The arctic fauna is very poor.
The North Atlantic being altogether cut off from the Arctic regions, and the vertical circulation being active, this movement is here practically non-existent; but in the South Atlantic, where communication with the Southern Ocean is perfectly open, Antarctic water can be traced to the equator and even beyond.
Christ has objected to terming the arctic flora Scandinavian, but the name implies nothing more than that Scandinavia has been its chief centre of preservation.
It took place southwards, for the arctic flora is remarkably uniform, and, as Chodat points out, it shows no evidence of having been recruited from the several mountain floras.
The arctic flora contains no genus that is peculiar to it, and only some fifty species that are so.
He was accompanied by John Davis, the great Arctic navigator, as pilot-major.
Even in summer the double period is not prominent in the arctic climate of Karasjok or on the top of the Eiffel Tower.
The communication between the Atlantic and Arctic basins being cut off, as already described, at a depth of about 300 fathoms, the temperatures in the Norwegian Sea below that level are essentially Arctic, usually below the freezing-point of fresh water, except where the distribution is modified by the surface circulation.
For purposes of measurement the polar boundaries are taken to be the Arctic and Antarctic circles, although in discussing the configuration and circulation it is impossible to adhere strictly to these limits.
While Europe and probably North America were occupied by a warm temperate flora, tropical types had been driven southward, while the adaptation of others to arctic conditions had become accentuated.
At the close of the glacial period the alpine floras retreated to the mountains accompanied by an arctic contingent, though doubtless many species of the latter, such as Salix polaris, failed to establish themselves.
The Pliocene flora found refuges in favored localities from which at its close the lowlands were restocked while the arctic plants were left behind on the mountains.
There is no reason to suppose that the peculiarities of the arctic flora are more modern than those of any other, though there is no fossil evidence to prove that it was not so.
That the arctic flora was driven south into Central Europe cannot be contested in the face of the evidence collected by Nathorst from deposits connected with the boulderclay.
Aristotle defined the temperate zone as extending from the tropic to the arctic circle, but there is some uncertainty as to the precise meaning he gave to the term " arctic circle."
The most important Arctic work in the 18th century was performed by the Russians, for they succeeded in delineating the whole of the northern coast of Siberia.
Thus it consists of the immense plains and flat lands which extend between the plateau formation and the Arctic Ocean, including the series of parallel chains and hilly spurs which skirt the former region on the N.W.
The double river-systems of the Volga and Kama, the Ob and Irtysh, the Angara and Yenisei, the Lena and Vitim on the Arctic slope, and the Amur and Sungari on the Pacific slope, are instances.
European plains - the tundras, including the Arctic islands, the forest region, especially the coniferous part of it, and the ante-steppe and steppes of the black earth region.
Still, the reindeer frequents it for its lichens, and on the drier slopes of the moraine deposits there occur four species of lemming, hunted by the Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus).
Along the Murman coast of the Arctic Ocean and in the White Sea, where many millions of herrings are caught annually by some 3000 persons, the yearly produce is estimated at the value of £140,000.
It is singular that such closely allied species as the domestic dog and the Arctic fox are among the favourite prey of wolves, and, as is well known, children and even full-grown people are not infrequently the objects of their attack when pressed by hunger.
Flies seem capable of adapting themselves to extremes of cold equally as well as to those of heat, and species belonging to the order are almost invariably included in the collections brought back by members of Arctic expeditions.
A great circle, drawn through East Cape and the southern point of Arabia, passes nearly along the coast-line of the Arctic Ocean, over the Ural Mountains, through the western part of the Caspian, and nearly along the boundary between Persia and Asiatic Turkey.
The portion of Asia which lies between the Arctic Ocean and the mountainous belt bounding Manchuria, Mongolia and Turkestan Siberia.
Thus it appears that from the Arctic Ocean there stretches a broad area as far as the south of China, in which no marine deposits of later date than Carboniferous have yet been found, except in the extreme north.
The rainfall, though moderate, is still sufficient to maintain the supply of water in the great rivers that traverse the country to the Arctic Sea, and to support an abundant vegetation.
The vegetation of the higher and therefore cooler and less rainy ranges of the Himalaya has greater uniformity of character along the whole chain, and a closer general approach to European forms is maintained; an increased number of species is actually identical, among these being found, at the greatest elevations, many alpine plants believed to be identical with species of the north Arctic regions.
Between his first and second arctic voyages he made the acquaintance of the Fox family, the spiritualists.
They are essentially coast-fishes, inhabiting nearly all seas, but disappearing towards the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans.
The fauna, explored by Dybowski and Godlewski, and in 1900-2 by Korotnev, is much richer than it was supposed to be, and has quite an original character; but hypotheses as to a direct communication having existed between Lake Baikal and the Arctic Ocean during the Post-Tertiary or Tertiary ages are not proved.
The ordinary musk-rat is one of several species of a genus peculiar to America, where it is distributed in suitable localities in the northern part of the continent, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Rio Grande to the barren grounds bordering the Arctic seas.
He entered the navy in 1846, and served first at sea off Portugal in 1847; afterwards, in 1848, in the Mediterranean, and from 1848 to 1851 as midshipman of the "Reynard" in operations against piracy in Chinese waters; as midshipman and mate of the "Serpent" during the Burmese War of 1852-53; as mate of the "Phoenix" in the Arctic Expedition of 1854; as lieutenant of the "Hastings" in the Baltic during the Russian War, taking part in the attack on Sveaborg.
It occurs throughout the greater part of the Arctic regions, the varieties in the old and new world differing slightly in colour.
Their services to their owners and to Arctic explorers are well known, but Eskimo dogs are so rapacious that it is impossible to train them to refrain from attacking sheep, goats or any small domesticated animals.
The united river carrying down the waters of the Athabasca slope is called the Slave river, which, passing through Great Slave Lake, emerges as the great Mackenzie river, which falls into the Arctic Sea.
They have also been found in Pleistocene gravels in several parts of England, as Maidenhead, Bromley, Freshfield near Bath, Barnwood near Gloucester, and in the brick-earth of the Thames valley at Crayford, Kent; while their remains also occur in Arctic America.
The southern and south-western coasts have been known, as will be mentioned later, since the 10th century, when Norse settlers appeared there, and the names of many famous arctic explorers have been associated with the exploration of Greenland.
The unusual glaciation of the east coast is evidently owing to the north polar current carrying the ice masses from the north polar basin 4 south-westward along the land, and giving it an entirely arctic climate down to Cape Farewell.
The climate of the east coast is on the whole considerably more arctic than that of the west coast on corresponding latitudes; the land is much more completely snowcovered, and the snow-line goes considerably lower.
We thus see that the American and the European-Asiatic elements of the flora are nearly equivalent; and if the flora of Arctic North America were better known, the number of plants common to America might be still more enlarged.5 In the south, a few goats, sheep, oxen and pigs have been introduced.
The plants are of the usual arctic type, and identical with or allied to those found in Lapland or on the summits of the highest British hills.
North of this zone the rainfall decreases towards the Arctic.
Recent offerings include arctic char filets, tea-steamed duck medallions and saffron thread risotto cakes.
The Ptychoderidae and Spengelidae are predominantly tropical and subtropical, while the Balanoglossidae are predominantly arctic and temperate in their distribution.
They may be traced from the Tian-shan to the Arctic Circle, and have an east-north-easterly direction in lower latitudes and a north-easterly direction farther north.
In the region between Viluisk (on the Vilui) and Yeniseisk a broad belt of alpine tracts, reaching their greatest elevation in the northern Yeniseisk taiga (between the Upper Tunguzka and the Podkamennaya Tunguzka) and continued to the south-west in lower upheavals, separates the elevated plains from the lowlands which extend towards the Arctic Ocean.
The three principal rivers - the Ob, the Yenisei, and the Lena - take their rise on the high plateau or in the alpine regions fringing it, and, after descending from the plateau and piercing the alpine regions, flow for many hundreds of miles across the high plains and lowlands before they reach the Arctic, Ocean.