The Earth’s Polar Regions are the most extreme parts of the planet, and due to the frigid climate, are covered with the polar ice caps. The northern and southern poles are different for a number of reasons.
Due to the geography of the earth, the northern Arctic zone is made up of the northern tips of Russia, North America, Greenland, and parts of Europe, but the actual land area in the Arctic Circle is much less than that of the sea. Of course, much of the region is covered by an ice sheet, so differentiating between sea and land is often nearly impossible. Although both poles are thought of as equally cold and uninhabitable, the northern polar region is less cold than Antarctica. The large amount of water around the North Pole keeps the temperatures from dropping as low as in the south. Since Antarctica is a continent, and features higher elevations-and even mountains-the higher elevations make it a much colder region.
Antarctica is the icy continent which lies at the southernmost point of the Earth, and differs from its northern counterpart in several ways. The major difference is, obviously, that it is a continent, and as such contains mountains, valleys, glaciers, and the center of which is actually considered the largest desert in the world. In addition to being the coldest place on the planet, it’s also one of the driest. Temperatures range from the coldest of -90C near the pole in the winter, to almost +15C near the coasts in the summer. The interior of the continent typically gets less than 10 cm of precipitation per year. The coasts, however, are subject to heavy snowfalls and ice storms, and a weather front dropping over a meter of ice and snow is not uncommon. The eastern part of the continent contains mountains and higher elevations, and so is normally colder than the western half.
For hundreds of years, cartographers, thinkers, philosophers, and other intellectuals believed in a frozen land to the south, and the debate still exists over who actually discovered it first. Generally it is believed that one of three ships captained by either a Russian, American, or Englishman, first sighted the landmass in 1820. These are the first recorded sightings, but we can be sure that it was discovered much earlier than that. As far as the Northern Polar region is concerned, there is less to discover, yet throughout the 19th and well into the 20th century, there was a race to be the first to reach the North Pole. Many expeditions set out with the goal of reaching the pole; some of which ended in disaster, some of which ended in unfounded claims of success, and one—that of Edwin Peary in 1909—ended in actual success.
Several research stations have been posted on the continent of Antarctica, and in 1959, 12 countries signed the Antarctic Treaty designed to protect the continent from military activities, mining and oil drilling, and to promote scientific research and study. Likewise, tourism to the continent has become a popular industry, with cruises, adventure guides, and photography safaris being conducted on a regular basis. |
