Antarctica: King of Cold

Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level = 5.3

The North Pole and the South Pole have a few things in common. If you stand at either pole and look straight up, you’ll be looking at the same spot in the sky all day long. That’s not true anywhere else on the Earth; only at the poles does a line straight up point at the same spot all day (or all night) long.

That’s not the only thing the North Pole and the South Pole have in common. They’re both cold! Yes, they are, but the South Pole is much colder than the North Pole. When it comes to weather and climate, the things that make the poles different might be more interesting and important than the things that make them the same.

The Colder Pole

And different they are. For starters, Antarctica is much colder. The average winter temperature in Antarctica is -76 degrees Fahrenheit. A “warm” summer day is around 22 degrees below zero! Even the coldest winter night at the North Pole isn’t as cold as the sunniest summer day at the South Pole.

Why should that be? First of all, the North Pole is over an ocean. Believe it or not, even cold ocean water holds a lot of heat. As this ocean water changes to ice, it keeps the temperature from falling too far.

How? Believe it or not, freezing actually slows down dropping temperatures. As water gets colder, its temperature drops lower and lower, until it begins to freeze. Then, during freezing, the temperature stays the same. It’s as if the water said, “Whoa! No more temperature drops ’til I’m finished freezing!” Until all the water turns to ice, the temperature of the ice and water mixture doesn’t get any lower. And there’s a lot of water at the North Pole!

On the other hand, the South Pole is on the continent called Antarctica. Not only is the South Pole on land, it’s on very high land. While the North Pole is just a few meters above sea level, the South Pole is almost 2400 meters (about a mile and a half) high. The greater your distance from sea level, the colder the air around you becomes. (Think of the snowy tops of high mountain peaks.) This extra height helps keep the South Pole extra cold.

Weather patterns make the South Pole colder too. Even though the North Pole is over ocean water, land isn’t that far away. Warmer air that gathers over Russia or Canada floats over the North Pole and warms it up.

But Antarctica is the most isolated continent on the planet. It is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. That makes a big weather difference. The ocean sloshes around Antarctica, blocking the path of warmer water from the north.

In the sky, a sort of an ocean of cold, dry air does something similar. The air circles Antarctica again and again, just like the ocean water. This circle of very cold air keeps out any warmer northern air that might venture near.

No Camels, But Still a Desert

Think about what that circle of unchanging air means. First of all, the air gets very cold. But it also gets very dry. Here’s why: as the temperature drops, any moisture in the air turns to rain or snow. But the air over Antarctica lost any moisture it had long ago. There’s simply no moisture left to lose. The result is some of the coldest and driest air on Earth. It’s that dry air that turns Antarctica into a desert.

That’s right. Antarctica isn’t only the coldest place on Earth; it’s also one of the world’s driest deserts. It might sound strange to call a land of frozen water a desert, but that’s just what Antarctica is. Because the air rarely changes, the skies are almost always clear, and new snow almost never falls. Of course the old snow (which long ago became ice) never melts. As a result, the ice on Antarctica is some of the oldest ice on the planet.

White Out

Because it is covered in ice, Antarctica is white. The ice reflects most of the sun’s light right back into space before it has a chance to heat anything. The Arctic is mostly white, too, but there are more patches of bare land or water to absorb heat from the sun.

The cold and dry climate of Antarctica makes it one of the toughest places on Earth to live. There aren’t many animals there. Marine mammals, like whales and seals, only stay for a short time. Sea birds like penguins live on the Antarctic Peninsula, where the weather isn’t quite so terrible. The largest animal that lives year-round in the center of the continent is a tiny insect called a midge.

The midge is around twelve millimeters (about half an inch) long, and is a type of fly without wings (making it a fly that doesn’t fly!). The tiny midge may be the king of beasts in this cold and dry place. But Antarctica itself is the real king – the King of Cold!

Experiments to try:

1) Measure the temperature of water in a freezer. Find out how the temperature changes:

a) As the water cools but before it changes to ice.
b) As the water changes to ice
c) After all the water is frozen

2) Find out how color affects temperature.

a) find two identical cans
b) wrap one of the cans in black paper
c) wrap the other can in white paper
d) hold both cans under a bright light and measure the temperature change inside each can

Glossary

bird – an animal with feathers

climate – long-term patterns of weather

continent – a large body of land surrounded by oceans and other continents

desert – a very dry area

evaporate – change from a liquid to a vapor or gas

freeze – change from a liquid to a solid

insect – an animal with six legs

isolated – far away from others of its kind

mammal – an animal that feeds its young milk

ocean – a large and very deep body of salt water

reflect – to bounce back light

temperature – a measure of how much heat something has

weather – day to day changes in conditions

Modified versions of this text are available for grades K-1 (Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level = 1.8) and grades 2-3 (Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level = 3.7). See below for links to all three versions in text, book, and electronic book forms.