Antarctica population - Can humans live in the Antarctic?
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| Antarctica |
When you think of the coldest place on earth, it usually conjures images of tundra and a desolate landscape dotted with isolated farms..
But for those who dare to venture into the frozen wastes of Antarctic Europe, a world-renown for its harsh winters and long, dark days, the concept of extreme climate change conjures vivid pictures too.
If you’re willing to go there, that is.
Destitute explorers first made the journey to the continent in the 14th century as part of a Holy Crusade against Muslim rule in Europe.
Over time, they’ve become an integral part of European culture, helping to make it one of the most visited countries in the world. But just because Europeans have travelled to Antarctica doesn’t mean they know much about it – or its consequences for them.
This article explains what we do know about the effects of climate change in this region, why Europeans are particularly vulnerable to its effects, and how they can take steps towards adaptation and mitigation wherever possible.
There are few places on Earth as remote, desolate, and potentially hostile as the vast expanse of Antarctica. The continent holds the world's largest ice sheet, covering an area larger than all of Europe combined.
But it's not just the floating Continental Ice Shelf that gives Antarctica such a frosty feel.
There is also powerful and persistent seawater flowing down from the Antarctic Convergence, which lies to the south of the ice sheet.
Read more about the continent of Europe from here
This seawater has a higher salt content than freshwater coming from sources further north, so it precipitates out into salty waterfalls known as fjords.
These fjords act like giant drains in the ice sheet, constantly collecting and evaporating moisture from the air and snowfall from the topsoil below.
The result? A climate that can be as cold as minus 250°C (minus 390°F) for more than half a year at any one time.
The climate of Antarctica is one of extremes.
The continent is covered by some of the most remote and pristine environments on earth, yet its history has been forged by its environment.
From the frigid temperatures that prevail in winter to the scorching summer heat, Antarctica has it all.
We’ve explored many of these extremes in this blog, but what about the others? We’ll explore the top 10 different climate types in Antarctica and why you might want to host a winter getaway there.
Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, highest and windiest continent on Earth.
That’s a lot to ask of any place, but Antarctica means even more when you consider that over 90% of the continent is covered by ice.
In other words, it’s one of the most inhospitable places in the world.
This month we travel to one of the most remote corners of the world: McMurdo Station in Antarctica.
The station serves as a research facility for the US National Science Foundation and as a base for international scientific missions operating out of Mcmurdo Station.
McMurdo is also known as Windy Station because it was built on an island just off the coast of Antarctica’s ice-covered continent.
This article will highlight everything you need to know about life at McMurdo Station, from how to get there to what to expect once you arrive.
The ice on the Earth's surface continues to grow. Each spring, the rate of this growth is greatest in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern hemisphere.
In the northern hemisphere, where there is more snow and ice covering land than in the southern hemisphere, much of this extra ice melts in the summer.
This results in a net increase in global sea level over the course of a year.
The table below shows how much sea level rise will occur due to these annual changes from freeze-up to melt-down.
The last time the Industrial World saw climate change as a looming threat was in the late 1990s.
As a result, many businesses have rushed to sign new contracts and build new factories while demand for raw materials remains high and prices are low.
However, with global warming now happening at a much faster pace than scientists previously predicted, businesses must now factor in the risk of being locked into expensive carbon-based contracts for years to come.
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