Antarctica
Antarctica is a desert - but it's not hot, it's really, really cold. It's called a desert because it hardly ever rains. The South Pole is near the middle of Antarctica. That's the very bottom of the planet. In parts of Antarctica the winter temperature can be minus 60°C.
Nobody lives in Antarctica permanently. Some scientists stay there to work and carry out research. They may spend months indoors in the research stations. When the weather gets bad, they are cut-off from the rest of the world.
Antarctica Facts
- Including its islands and attached floating plains of ice, Antarctica has an area of about 5.4 million square miles (14 million square kilometres), about one-and-a-half times the size of the United States.
- Antarctica is, of course, home to the geographic South Pole, the spot where the Earth's (imaginary) rotation axis would intersect the surface.
- Antarctica is the fifth largest continent.
- The Antarctic Ice Sheet is the largest single mass of ice on Earth.
- Ninety-nine percent of Antarctica is covered by ice.
- Antarctica is home to about 70 percent of the planet's fresh water, and 90 percent of the planet's freshwater ice.
- If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melted entirely, it would raise global average sea levels by 16 feet (5 meters), according to some estimates.
- The highest point on Antarctica is the Vinson Massif at 16,362 feet (4,987 metres).
- Antarctica is home to Mount Erebus, the southernmost active volcano on the planet and home to Earth's only long-lived lava lakes.
- There is a year-round presence of researchers on Antarctica, peaking at more than 4,000 in the prime summer research season and falling to around 1,000 in the winter season.
- Like the Arctic to the north, most of Antarctica is completely dark during the region's winter months because of the Earth's tilt.
- During the summer months, when the sun is constantly above the horizon, more sunlight reaches the surface at the South Pole than over a similar period of time at the equator.
- Penguins are the most common bird in Antarctica and live in colonies with populations that would rival some cities, according to the British Antarctic Survey.
- There are no trees or shrubs on Antarctica, and only two species of flowering plants (found on some of Antarctica's surrounding islands and on the Antarctic Peninsula).
- The air in Antarctica is so cold that water vapour can condense out of the air and form tiny ice crystals that then fall to the ground creating a phenomenon called diamond dust.
- Deep Lake in Antarctica is so salty that it stays liquid at temperatures down to minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 20 degrees Celsius).
- In 2011, nearly 20,000 tourists visited the Antarctic Peninsula, according to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators.
- The average thickness of Antarctic ice is about 1 mile (1.6 kilometres).
Antarctica Resources
Captain Scott
Robert Falcon Scott was born on 6 June 1868 in Devonport. He became a naval cadet at the age of 13 and served on a number of Royal Navy ships in the 1880s and 1890s. He attracted the notice of the Royal Geographical Society, which appointed him to command the National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1904. The expedition - which included Ernest Shackleton - reached further south than anyone before them and Scott returned to Britain a national hero. He had caught the exploring bug and began to plan an expedition to be the first to reach the South Pole. On 17 January, they reached the pole, only to find that a Norwegian party led by Roald Amundsen, had beaten them there.
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BBC History - Scott of the Antarctic |
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BBC News - Scott's Antarctic diet: Stewed penguin and champagne |
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Biography - Robert Falcon Scott |
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BBC Teach - Robert Falcon Scott |
Ernest Shackleton
Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer, best known for leading the 'Endurance' expedition of 1914-16. Ernest Henry Shackleton was born on 15 February 1874 in County Kildare, Ireland. His father was a doctor. The family moved to London where Shackleton was educated. Rejecting his father's wish that he become a doctor, he joined the merchant navy when he was 16 and qualified as a master mariner in 1898. He travelled widely but was keen to explore the poles.
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School Learning Zone - Ernest Shackleton |
Roald Amundsen
Roald Amundsen, in full Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen, (born July 16, 1872, Borge, near Oslo, Norway—died June 18, 1928, Arctic Ocean), Norwegian explorer who was the first to reach the South Pole, the first to make a ship voyage through the Northwest Passage, and one of the first to cross the Arctic by air. He was one of the greatest figures in the field of polar exploration.
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Biography - Roald Amundsen |
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BBC News - Arctic explorer's ship returns home after 100 years |