Top 10 Facts about Antarctica

 Perhaps one of the most captivating and mystical places on earth – particularly given how recently it was discovered – scientists throughout the last few centuries have worked hard to help us understand more about the seventh continent. While it remains a place of unique wildlife and stark, inhospitable stretches of ice where much is still unknown, what we do know is utterly fascinating. 

 

Therefore, here is our list of the ten most interesting facts about Antarctica.

#10 Roald Amundsen was first to reach the South Pole

The Norwegian explorer arrived at the South Pole on December 14 in 1911. Of course, there might be others back in history, but Roald Amundsen’s trip to the South Pole is the first successful exploration recorded.

#09 Antarctica Is the Coldest, Windiest and Driest Continent

Despite all its ice, Antarctica is technically a desert, because of the low precipitation levels. The inner regions receive an average of 2 inches (50 millimetres) precipitation (in the form of snow) each year. To compare, the Sahara desert receives twice as much rain each year. The coasts of Antarctica receive more falling moisture, but unlike in other deserts, it does not soak into the ground.

#08 Winds can reach up to 200 miles per hour

Antarctica is one of the windiest places on Earth and is home to unusual katabatic and downslope winds. Cold temperatures and the shape of the continent influence the strong winds. The highest recorded wind speed was at a French base back in 1972 – it was blowing at 200 miles per hour (320 km/h). And even though it doesn’t snow there that often, (contrary to what most of us would think), due to strong winds, the snow is picked up from the ground and moved around, which might look like it’s snowing.

#07 Antarctica Has No Official Time Zone

At the South Pole the lines of longitude, which give us different time zones around the globe, all meet at a single point. Most of Antarctica experiences 6 months of constant daylight in summer and 6 months of darkness in winter. Time starts to feel a little different without the normal markers for day and night.

As Antarctica is mostly uninhabited, the continent is not officially divided into time zones. However, a number of existing research stations either use the time zone of the country that operates or supplies them, or use the local time of countries located nearby. For example, McMurdo Station observes New Zealand Standard Time (NZST) during standard time and New Zealand Daylight Time (NZDT) during the Daylight Saving Time (DST) period in New Zealand. Palmer Station (an American research station) keeps Chile Summer Time (CLST) as Chile is the closest country to their station.

#06 More Meteorites Are Found In Antarctica than Anywhere Else is In the World

According to scientists, meteorites land everywhere with almost equal probability. However, if they fell in a humid jungle climate, moisture and oxygen would corrode them. In Antarctica, where the climate is extremely dry, the likelihood of corrosion is almost non-existent. In addition to this, naturally, the rocks are easier to spot on the white, icy surface of Antarctica. Lastly, sometimes mountains or other obstructions clog the East Antarctic ice sheet’s path to the sea. If the sheet stays in one spot for a long time, strong winds and sunlight can evaporate the top layers and reveal much older ice and large meteorite concentrations within it. This way, more than 20,000 samples of rock from unknown sources were collected since 1976.

#05 There Is a Waterfall in Antarctica That Is Called Blood Falls

Do not worry – no real blood is running there. 5 million years ago, as sea levels rose, East Antarctica was flooded and a brine lake was formed there. After millions of years, glaciers formed on top of the lake. As they froze, the water below became even saltier. Today, the subglacial lake under Blood Falls is three times saltier than seawater and, therefore, is too salty to freeze. The water beneath Taylor Glacier, which feeds the Blood Fall, contains a lot of iron (picked up from the underlying bedrock) and when iron-rich water meets air, the iron oxidizes and takes on a red colouring, leaving blood-like stains on the ice.

#04 Antarctica has active volcanoes

Antarctica is home to several volcanoes and two of them are active. Mount Erebus, the second-highest volcano in Antarctica is the southernmost active volcano on Earth. Located on Ross Island, It contains a 1,700 °F (about 927 °C) lava lake that is thought to be miles deep. Mount Erebus is always alive and bubbling, releasing gas and spitting out chunks of molten rock and feldspar crystals, rich in potassium, sodium and aluminium silicate. The second active volcano is on Deception Island, a volcanic caldera in the South Shetland Islands.

#03 The largest ozone hole is over Antarctica

Reactions that take place on polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) play an important role in enhancing ozone depletion. PSCs form more readily in the extreme cold of the Arctic and Antarctic stratosphere. This is why ozone holes first formed, and are deeper, over Antarctica. Largest-ever Ozone Hole over Antarctica. A NASA instrument has detected an Antarctic ozone "hole" (what scientists call an "ozone depletion area") that is three times larger than the entire land mass of the United States—the largest such area ever observed.

#02 Due To Climate Change, Antarctica Has Lost 3 Trillion Tons of Ice in Just 25 Years

In the past 25 years, Antarctica has lost more than 3 trillion tons of ice. Sadly, the ice loss process has accelerated dramatically over the last five years. While analysing data from multiple satellite surveys from 1992 to 2017, a group of 84 international researchers has found that Antarctica is currently losing ice about three times faster than it did before 2012. Now it is predicted that more than 241 billion tons of ice are lost each year.

#01 Antarctica holds most of the world’s fresh water

An incredible 60-90% of the world’s fresh water is locked in Antarctica’s vast ice sheet. The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest on Earth, covering an incredible 14 million km² (5.4 million square miles) of Antarctic mountain ranges, valleys and plateaus. This leaves only 1% of Antarctica permanently ice-free.

At its deepest, Antarctica’s ice is 4.5km (2.7 miles) thick – that is half the height of Mt Everest! If it all melted, global sea levels would rise about 60 m (200 ft.).