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Antarctica
Antarctica is an uninhabited continent dedicated to science and governed by The Antarctic Treaty. As questions about the highest, driest, windiest, iciest, darkest continent on earth.
3,949 Questions
Are the glaciers in antarctica the biggest in the world?
The world's tallest mountain -- Mt Everest at 29,029' (8,848 m) is located in Asia.
The world's largest volcano -- Mauno Loa -- about the size of New Mexico, is located on Hawaii's big island of Hawai'i.
What kinds of fossils have been found on Antarctica?
I'm not sure of what fossils were found in Antarctica from all time periods, but I do know that there were a variety of plants and animals there during the Mesozoic. Some of the animals that I will list were found in Australia, which, at this time, was connected to Antarctica and had the same kinds of fauna and flora, as well as climate. Fossils of dinosaurs like Antarctopelta (an ankylosaur), Antarctosaurus (a sauropod), Cryolophosaurus (a theropod), and Leallynasaura (a small, herbivorous, bipedal dinosaur). There were amphibians, including the 16 foot long Koolasuchus, that filled a niche similar to modern crocodillians. In the shallow seas and/or rivers there were also plesiosaurs.
The plants were adapted for a cool climate with cold winters, and included conifers and ferns, as well as mosses and lichens.
Are there natural disasters in Antarctica?
If a natural disaster can be, for example, a hurricane, a flood or earthquake: these are not events that occur on Antarctica.
There are blizzards there, and during them, no people are allowed out of doors. Ninety-eight percent of the continent is covered by an ice sheet, so there are no floods. Antarctica is a quiet zone in earthquake language, but ice quakes to occur due to disintegrating ice shelves.
Human dangers do include extreme cold weather incidents, such as frostbite, dropping into a crevasse from which one cannot be rescued, drowning in liquid sea water fully clothed in extreme cold weather gear, and death by hypothermia.
What is the sea temperature around Antarctica?
The ocean you reference is properly known as the Southern Ocean. Liquid ocean water there can be as cold as 27 degrees F, because of the high-content of minerals in the water. Otherwise, the sea water is frozen.
Facts about lichen in antarctica?
Lichens occupy many kinds of habitats, often in extreme environments. In fact, there are three main types of lichen that exist in Antarctica. They are the crustose lichens, foliose lichens, and fruticose lichens.
How big is Mcmurdo Station in Antarctica?
McMurdo Station in Antarctica covers an area of approximately 252.4 hectares (623 acres) in size. It is the largest research station in Antarctica and can accommodate up to 1,258 individuals in the summer months.
How fast does Antarctic ice move in feet per hour?
Until they start to break off they move very slowly. Some do not move at all others move as much as 100 feet in a day. (4 feet/hour). The average OS probably around .5 feet/hour, although the variances are great. Some glaciers have multiple speeds. The top may be moving fast while the bottom is still.
Why are icebergs dangerous to ships?
An iceberg or ice mountain is a large piece of freshwater ice that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open water. The problem with Icebergs is that they float into shipping lanes and because Ice is frozen water they are almost of the same density as water. This means that the bit that you can see sticking up from the sea surface is only a VERY small bit of the iceberg, (typically only one-tenth of the volume of an iceberg is above water). This means that ships can hit the underwater bit even when they are not close to the visible bit.
What is the average winter temperature in Antarctica?
Antarctica is as large as USA and Mexico combined. Antarctica is also the coldest continent.
According to USA Today: "The average high temperature for the year in Antarctica is about -49 degrees F, while the average low temperature for the continent is about -56 degrees F."
As well, they state: "July features an average high temperature of -76 degrees and an average low temperature of about -81 degrees F."
Winter begins on June 21 and spring begins on September 21. Since over most of the continent, the first sunrise may be as late as mid-August, that month could be colder than July.
What is the name for the lines that meet at the north and south poles?
The lines that meet at the North and South Poles are called meridians of longitude. These lines run from the North Pole to the South Pole and are used to measure how far east or west a location is from the Prime Meridian.
How many types of seals live in Antarctica?
There are two main types of seals that live in Antarctica: the Weddell seal and the leopard seal. These seals are well adapted to the extreme cold conditions of Antarctica and can be found along the coastlines and ice floes of the continent.
What will happen to Antarctica if global warming continues?
Antarctica will melt if the temperatures do rise, this will result in a loss of many species of animals and a rise In the sea levels. Global Warming is NO joke, it is serious and is actually happening.
Also, research for finding cures will be eliminated as there won't be enough land to experiment on meaning we might not find better cures for diseases.
(Irrelevant information)The Antarctic ice sheet is getting larger, not smaller. NASA admitted this. So logic says at this rate, it continues to grow.
Why does Antarctica get northern lights?
Antarctica does not get the "Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis)", being at the South Pole, it gets the "Southern Lights" or the Aurora Australis. The source of both the Aurora Australis and Aurora Borealis is the sun. A stream of particles known as the "Solar Wind" spills around the edges of the Earth's magnetic sphere and, when it collides with gases in the ionosphere, the particles glow very spectacularly.
What land area is covered with glaciers besides Antarctica?
Besides Antarctica, large land areas covered with glaciers include Greenland, the Arctic, Iceland, and mountain regions such as the Himalayas, Alps, Andes, and Rocky Mountains. These regions contribute significantly to the Earth's freshwater reserves and play a crucial role in regulating global climate patterns.
Which continent is found at one of the poles?
Antarctica is the location for the South Pole. There is no continent, only sea water, under the North Pole.
What climate region dominates antarctica?
Antarctica is dominated by a polar climate region. This means it is extremely cold, with temperatures often well below freezing, and receives very little precipitation in the form of rain. The continent is also characterized by strong winds and long periods of darkness in winter.
Why do plants grow better in the ocean than the land on antarctica?
Anything growing on the land, would be growing in an extremely hostile environment in almost permanently sub-zero temperature with no water and no animal or insect means of pollination. Because Antarctica is a "polar" region, there is no precipitation, it has no lakes or rivers and is in fact the driest continent. Average temperatures in the Antarctic interior get down to -70 degrees Celsius during the winter months and -35 degrees Celsius in the warmer months. The coastal temperatures are much warmer with a range of -15 to -32 Celsius in Winter and -5 to +5 Celsius in Summer. The interior of Antarctica is considered the world's driest desert because the extreme cold freezes water vapour out of the air. Annual snowfall on the polar plateau is equivalent to less than 5 cm of rain. Antarctica has some of the strongest winds on earth, with some winds reaching 320 kph.
What is under the Antarctic ice?
Under the Antarctic ice, there is a diverse landscape of mountains, valleys, lakes, rivers, and even active volcanoes. In addition to the geology, there is also a rich ecosystem of unique and adapted organisms that thrive in the extreme cold and darkness of this environment. Additionally, there are research stations and scientific facilities that study the continent and its surrounding waters.
What is happening to Antarctica?
There are areas of cooling and areas of warming occurring simultaneously in Antarctica, according to recently recorded temperature data. Cooling has been observed in virtually all of the interior. Sea ice around the continent has been growing. However, warming has been observed in much of the water surrounding the peninsula, and parts of the coast, especially those further from the pole. The reason for these changes is believed to be multifactoral.
The cooling of the interior has been attributed to a positive trend in the Southern Annular Mode. This cooling strengthens the polar vortex, inhibiting air from moving across latitudes as much, and enhancing the prevailing winds. This has a profound effect on both temperature and precipitation (and subsequently both sea ice and the ice sheet). See the related question section below for more information about the Southern Annular Mode (SAM).
Loss of ice on the continent has occurred throughout the peninsula and West Antarctica, with smaller increases in East Antarctica. The most recent estimates of ice mass balance were reviewed in Shepherd and Wingham (2007). All studies use different time ranges, methodologies, and often areas. Ice loss in West Antarctica is generally estimated to be around 50Gt/year during the 1990's, accelerating to more than double that the following decade. This has been partially offset by gains in East Antarctica, ranging from about 0 - 60 Gt/year. See the related link to this article. Currently, it is believed that much of the melt in these areas is due to dynamic losses, especially from warmer ocean waters, rather than a warming atmosphere.
Although there are areas of warming in Antarctica, it is not as strongly influenced by global climate change as is the Arctic area, because of the mitigating factor of the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica. Additionally, much of its intraseasonal and interseasonal weather variability is governed by the SAM. This is a similar phenomenon to El Nino, in that it extends over a very large region at a low frequency. It is agreed that some of Antarctica's temperature trends are a result of the SAM, particularly since it has been trending toward its positive mode recently. There is also evidence that the SAM is at least partially driven by ozone depletion over Antarctica.
If you view the 2006 NASA temperature map via the related link below, which gives temperature trends in Antarctica during the period of 1982 - 2004, you can see the areas of cooling in blue (you'll see this in the interior and sea ice as explained above), with some places having cooler weather by as much as 0.2 degrees Celsius per year (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit); and the areas of warming in red, with some places (including the areas mentioned above, in much of the water surrounding the peninsula, and parts of the coast, especially those further from the pole), having warmer weather by as much as 0.2 degrees Celsius as well. See the related question section below for information about the difference between weather changes and climate changes.
Over a longer time scale, a 50-year reconstruction of temperature in Antarctica found that the surface temperature has been warming at a rate of 0.12 degrees Celsius. When broken down regionally, it was found that West Antarctica has warmed at a rate of 0.17 degrees Celsius, while East Antarctica has warmed by 0.10 degrees Celsius per decade. This was reported in Steig et al. 2009 (see related link) and is in agreement with previous studies.
Why Global warming is a serious issue to antarctica?
By definition, GLOBAL warming happens over the entire planet, so no, there cannot be global warming in any one location or region. However, LOCAL warming is not occurring in Antarctica. Temperatures there are colder than have ever been recorded, and they are STILL going down.
What percentage of ice in the Arctic and Antarctica is melting and making the seas raise?
In the Arctic, the main contribution to sea level rise is from the Greenland ice sheet. Sea ice is melting at an alarming rate, but because the sea ice already sits in the oceans, this does not contribute to sea level rise. Mountain glaciers are also trickling into the oceans quickly, but their mass is much less than that of Greenland, so we won't use them in this estimate - even though the worldwide melt rate of mountain glaciers is higher than that of Greenland. All the same, we'll approximate that all of the sea level rise in the Arctic is coming from Greenland.
Greenland is losing about 250 million tons of ice each year (267 +/- 38 Gton/yr to be exact), and has a total ice mass of 2.3 x 10^15 tons. Thus, the fraction of ice Greenland is losing each year is 1 x 10^(-7), or 100 billionths of its total mass. Note that this number is the *net* loss - it includes both the losses from calving icebergs and surface melt, and the gains from snowfall on the interior.
Antarctica is less clear because we have fewer measurements about the snowfall accumulation on the interior. Many different projections of the mass balance have come up with different values - the study I will use found that the mass balance is -5 to +85 million tons of ice per year. The total mass of Antarctica is 2.2 x 10^16 tons, so Antarctica is doing something in the range of losing 0.2 billionths of its mass to gaining 4 billionths of its mass each year. Again, these estimates are Antarctica's net mass balance - losses from calving and gains from snowfall.
We have observed about 3-4 millimeters per year of sea level rise, averaged over the entire twentieth century. Most of the observed sea level rise to date is actually due to thermal expansion of sea water - hotter water takes up more space. The colder water coming in from the melting ice sheets is insignificant compared to the huge volumes of warmer ocean water that already exist.
See the links below for the studies referred to.
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What is the normal temperature in Antarctica?
By night, one must assume that you mean during sun-less periods.
At the South Pole, the sun-less period is about six months and the temperature during that period averages between minus 65 and minus 75 degrees F.
Elsewhere on the continent, the sun-less periods vary as does the temperature, which is always extremely cold.
Would daylight savings be useful to Antarctica?
Scientific stations in Antarctica usually operate on the local time for the government that they serve.
There is no standard time in Antarctica. If the country headquarters is on daylight savings time, then so is the Antarctic base. However, when the sun is up 24 hours out of the day, there's not much value to the notion.
The largest island in Antarctica is Alexander Island, which covers an area of approximately 4,195 square miles (10,865 square kilometers). It is located in the Bellingshausen Sea off the western coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
