NAVAL ARCTIC MANUAL (Includes Change 1 and Change 2; To obtain please contact your national Defense Standardization Office or the NATO Standardization Office website: http:/ so.nato.int so@ Phone: +32 (0)2 – 707 5556@ email: nso@nso.nato.int. For addition
PREFACE Naval operations in high latitudes provide unique challenges to planning@ seamanship@ ingenuity@ endurance@ and foresight. The elements@ always dangerous@ become hostile. Mountainous seas@ stormforce winds and near-zero visibility for days on end put tremendous strain on men and material. The Arctic has been defined in a variety of ways. For naval considerations@ it is considered to be the area surrounding the geographic North Pole consisting of a deep central basin; the peripheral shallow seas (Bering@ Chukchi@ East Siberian@ Laptev@ Kara@ Barents@ and Norwegian); ice-covered portions of the Greenland and Norwegian Seas; Baffin Bay@ Canadian Archipelago@ Seas of Japan and Okhotsk; the continental margins of Canada and Alaska; and the Beaufort Sea.