Which is colder in the North Pole or the South Pole?

The two poles of the Earth with average temperatures from -28 degrees Celsius to -60 degrees Celsius, both have cold climates, but do you know whether the North Pole or the South Pole is colder?

Both the North Pole and the South Pole are cold because their locations at the top and bottom of the planet prevent these two places from receiving direct light from the Sun. In both places, the sun always rises low on the horizon, even in midsummer.

North Pole

The Arctic consists of a vast icy ocean surrounded by permafrost that makes it difficult for trees to survive. When standing at the North Pole, no matter which direction you look at, it will always be South. The North Pole is located in the middle of the ocean, covered with a thick layer of ice and constantly moving. If you accidentally fall into the water you will become an ice fossil and sink to a depth of up to 4000m.

On the water, the average temperature in winter can fall below -40 degrees Celsius and the coldest temperature ever recorded is about -68 degrees Celsius. Despite these harsh conditions, people still have settlements. inhabited the Arctic for thousands of years. In addition to humans, the Arctic ecosystem also includes ice-dwelling creatures, plankton, fish, birds, aquatic mammals, land animals, and plants.

Antarctic

Antarctica is a continent located at the southern pole of the Earth. It is the world's 5th largest continent with an area of ​​more than 14,000,000 square kilometers, nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by at least 1600m of ice and snow located on a huge rocky and continental bed with many high mountains, isolated from ocean influence. Therefore, living conditions in Antarctica are considered the harshest in the entire world.

The temperature in Antarctica can reach -89 degrees Celsius. Because it is so harsh, there is no population, only about 1,000 - 5,000 people living at research stations distributed along the continent. Even animals and plants are very rare, only species that are adapted to the cold can survive, including algae, protists, bacteria, fungi and a few animals and plants. .

Why is the South Pole colder than the North Pole?

The main reason why Antarctica is much colder than the Arctic lies in the key difference between the two regions. The North Pole is an ocean and the South Pole is a continent. Most of Antarctica is up to 3,000 m above average sea level, because the higher you go the lower the temperature and that also explains why Antarctica is so cold.

The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land. Antarctica is land surrounded by ocean. Water warms and cools more slowly than land, leading to less extreme temperatures. Even when the Arctic Ocean is covered with ice, the relatively warm temperature of the water has a moderating effect on the weather there, keeping the Arctic warmer than the Antarctic.

Another reason is that the seasons are against Antarctica. Around July, when the Earth is furthest from the Sun, the Northern Hemisphere turns toward the Sun, making it warmer, while the Southern Hemisphere turns away from the Sun, making it colder and colder. is winter in Antarctica, making the South Pole twice as cold.

Which pole has more ice?

At both the North and South poles, ice cover changes throughout the year, growing thick during the long, dark winters, melting during the bright, hotter summers.

Most of the change in ice cover at both the North and South poles is due to sea ice floating, growing and melting in the ocean.

Because the Arctic is almost completely surrounded by land, the sea ice that forms there is not as mobile as the sea ice in Antarctica. Therefore, Arctic sea ice sheets are more likely to converge, often making Arctic sea ice thicker, about 2 to 3 m, while Antarctic sea ice is 1 to 2 m thick, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

On average, Arctic sea ice reaches a minimum of about 6.5 million square kilometers and a maximum of 15.6 million square kilometers. Antarctica's sea ice has a smaller minimum area of ​​3.1 million square kilometers, but a larger maximum extent of 18.8 million square kilometers.

However, Antarctica still possesses more total ice than the Arctic. This is because in addition to sea ice, Antarctica also has land ice - the ice sheet on Antarctica is up to 4.8 km thick and 13.7 million square kilometers wide. In total, Antarctica contains about 90% of the world's ice.

Cecilia Bitz, a polar climate scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said the volume of land ice is less variable in the summer than sea ice.

Polar ice surveys have shown that both the thickness and extent of Arctic summer sea ice have decreased significantly over the past 30 years. This corresponds to studies showing that the Arctic is warming.