GIT Barents ► Arctic Circle
The Arctic Circle - A perpetual motion machine
The arctic countries have a unique, world-famous phenomenon in their area - The Arctic Circle. This is the line ,north of which, during at least one day of the year, the sun doesn’t set in summer and doesn’t rise in winter.
As a natural phenomenon, the Arctic Circle is quite analogous to the Antarctic Circle, Equator and the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer on our globe. All these phenomena are based on the same astronomical factors: The earth’s orbital plane around the sun, the earth’s own axis of rotation and the tilt angle of that axis in relation to the orbital plane.
Due to the continuous changing of the tilt angle of the rotation, the situation of the Arctic Circle is changing continuously.
|
The motion wave of the Arctic Circle is the sum of component motions that have different frequencies. The most significant of these are the two-week period, half year period, 18.6 year period and 41 000 year period. During millions of years the Arctic Circle has moved between the latitudes min. 65.5 degrees N and max. 67.7 degrees N. That is to say up to 250 km!
In the current phase of the longest wave, the Arctic Circle moves to the north for another 10 000 years, on average about 14 to 15 metres per year. In the 18.6 year period, the circle has in 2006 passed the peak of the motion wave: Until the year 2015 the Arctic Circle will travel again 700 metres to the north, and after that it will continue to the south about 450 metres during the following nine years. Depending on the phase of the motion, the Arctic Circle can move over three metres a day and over 100 metres a year!
|
The diagram above shows the movement of the Arctic Circle from 1950 until the year 2050. We can see that from 1950 to 2008 the movement has been more than 800 metres.
Open Arctic Circle information page
Below you can find sample low resolution videoclips of the The Arctic Circle movement. On some browsers this videos must be loaded to your own hard drive.