The Lincoln Sea is a body of water lying within the Arctic Ocean. It spans from Cape Colombia, Canada, in the west to Greenland’s Cape Morris Jessup in the east.
It remains covered with sea ice throughout the year. The ice can be up to 15 m thick, and water depths range from 100 to 300 metres. The ice and water from the Lincoln Sea flow into the Robeson Channel, the northernmost portion of Nares Strait.
It covers an area of approximately 25,000 square miles and has many unique ecological and geological features, which will be discussed in detail.
This article will take you through the 10 interesting facts about this remote and icy body of water that has not been studied much due to the harsh climate and environment it has.
1. Named after Robert Todd Lincoln, U.S Secretary of War
You might think that the Lincoln Sea is named after the 16th President of the U.S, Abraham Lincoln; however, it is not so. It is actually named after the U.S Secretary of War, Robert Todd Lincoln.
The name was given by Adolphus Greeley, a U.S Army officer and a polar explorer during an expedition to the Lincoln Sea undertaken between 1881 and 1884.
Robert Todd Lincoln was a lawyer, military officer, businessman and politician. He was the eldest son of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln. He served as the US Secretary of War and the U.S Ambassador to Great Britain.
Robert was born in Illinois and was a Harvard graduate. He went on to serve on the staff of Ulysses S. Grant as a Union Army captain when the American Civil War was about to end. Seen as a possible candidate for national office, including the presidency, he never took steps to initiate a campaign.
2. Alert is the only populated place on its shore
Alert is Canada’s northernmost station and the only populated region on the shores of the Lincoln Sea. It is situated in the Qikiqtaaluk region of Nunavut and is considered the northernmost continuously inhabited place in the world on Ellesmere Island, 508 miles from the North Pole.
It is named after the British Ship HMS Alert that wintered just 10 km away in 1875 and 1876. Captain George Nares and the crew members were the first Europeans to reach the northern end of Ellesmere Island. In the coming decades, other expeditions also passed through the Lincoln Sea. The most notable among them was the 1909 expedition of Robert Peary, who wanted to reach the North Pole.
All the residents are temporary, serving 3 to 6 months of tours of duty here. There is a military signals intelligence radio receiving facility at the Canadian Forces Station Alert and a co-located weather station, an atmosphere monitoring observatory, and a watch observatory, both operated by Environment and Climate Change Canada and an airport.
3. Wandel Sea lies to the east of Lincoln Sea
Also called the McKinley Sea, the Wandel Sea is a body of water in the Arctic Ocean, spanning from northeast Greenland to Svalbard. It is, however, obstructed by ice for most of the year.
The Wandel Sea is named after Danish Polar Explorer Vice Admiral Carl Frederick Wandel, who also explored Greenland’s coastal waters as part of the Danish Ingolf Expedition.
Two major fjords that have their mouths in the Wandel Sea are Independence Fjord and Frederick E. Hyde Fjord. There are many islands, like Princess Thyra Island and Princess Dagmar Island, the only inhabited place in the region.
4. Dispute over a 200 km2 section of Lincoln Sea
A dispute arose over a 200 km2 part of the Lincoln Sea after 1973. Canada and Denmark signed a treaty establishing the offshore boundary north of Canada’s Ellesmere Island and the Danish-controlled Greenland but left some parts of the region undefined.
For Canada, the focus in the dispute is Denmark’s inclusion of Beaumont Island, off Greenland’s northwest coast, in calculating the border. An equidistance principle determines the border. It draws a line halfway between points along the coastline of both countries. Canada has argued that Beaumont Island is too insignificant to be used by Greenland to determine the international border.
In 2022, Canada and Denmark formalised the maritime border between Nunavut and Greenland, including the Lincoln Sea, while establishing a land border on Hans Island.
5. Formed after the divergence of North America and Greenland
The Lincoln Sea is considered a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It was formed when the supercontinent Pangaea broke up around 200 million years ago during the Mesozoic era. As the landmass drifted apart, new water bodies began to form.
The Lincoln Sea was created when North America and Greenland separated due to seafloor spreading. As the two landmasses moved away from each other, the seafloor descended, and the sea took shape.
This divergence between North America and Greenland is still ongoing, and the Lincoln Sea widens as the two continents continue to move apart from each other.
The shape and borders of the sea have been influenced by glaciation during ice ages. Today, the seafloor has continental shelves with an average depth of 650 feet and a maximum depth of 2300 feet.
Underwater features include coral reefs, pockmarks, submarine canyons, etc. The seabed has sand, mud and gravel deposits, providing clues about past topographical conditions.
6. Less research material available
Due to the ice conditions which prevail throughout the year, it has been impossible to get oceanographic measurements of the Lincoln Sea. Before the 1980s, just low-flying aircraft and ground observations from ice islands were possible.
However, these recordings were from areas close to the shores of the Canadian Arctic archipelago and Greenland.
From 1989 to 1994, field experiments were undertaken, which enabled getting the temperature and salinity profiles of the Lincoln Sea. These measurements were taken in the middle of the sea, revealing its oceanographic features and current circulation.
The water of the Lincoln Sea contains three distinct properties. The first is the water in the inner part of the Lincoln Sea shelf, where temperature and salinity increase from the surface to the seafloor. The second is the water covering the shelf’s outer part and the slope. The third is the waters that lie north of the shelf’s scope and spread into the Arctic Basin.
Lincoln Sea has a polar climate with long, bitterly cold winters in which the average temperature is around -36 degrees Celsius from December to February. It has short and cool summers with average temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius from July to September. Ice cover persists from October to June annually. Sea ice reaches its maximum extent in March and its minimum in September. Ice acts like an insulator.
Many ports lie near the Lincoln Sea. The Longyearbyen lies on the island of Spitsbergen, the biggest island in the Svalbard archipelago. It is the world’s northernmost settlement, having a population of over 1000. It serves as a logistics hub for transporting cargo to several settlements on the island. It has three quays which handle general cargo, coal, ore and passengers. Barentsburg Port lies in the southwestern region of the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, between mainland Norway and the North Pole. It has a long berth used by the local mining industry to export coal. The town has a Russian population and has recently become a famous tourist destination. Ny-Alesund in Norway is a research station on the coast of King Bay on Spitsbergen Island. A small harbour handles the supply and transfer of goods for the research community. Alert in Nunavut, Canada, which is the world’s northernmost permanently inhabited place. It has a port covered by ice in winter but receives ships in summer carrying essential supplies like food, clothes and other equipment. Eureka in Nunavut is another research facility and a weather station on Ellesmere Island with a harbour. Utqiagvik in Alaska is the northernmost city in the US. It lies on the Beaufort Sea coast close to the mouth of the Lincoln Sea. Its port remains ice-bound in the cold months. Prudhoe Bay, also in Alaska, is known for its oil field, the largest in North America. It has a port with year-round icebreaker-assisted access for oil tankers.
Despite the harsh environment in this part of the world, many organisms have adapted to the extreme cold and call the Lincoln Sea home. In fact, the Arctic marine ecosystems host more than 2000 species of algae, thousands of microbes and more than 5000 animal species, such as the polar bear, narwhals, belugas, seals, and seabirds like little auks and black-legged kittiwakes. As climate warms, the Arctic is slowly opening up to tourism, though it is still limited. Cruise ships visit the coastal settlements in summer, and tourists can enjoy land tours and sightseeing. There are fishing and hunting charters. Camping, kayaking and hunting can be enjoyed on the Ellesmere Island. Please provide the content that needs to be rewritten.