To most of us, the regions of both the North as
South Poles are lands of great mystery. We have a vague idea of what they're
like, and we imagine that they must be very similar to each other.
The strange thing is that differences between the
Antarctic region (South Pole Area) and the Arctic region (North Pole Area) are
greater than heir similarities! The South Pole area consists chiefly of
continent called Antarctica. This ice-snow-covered continent s nearly twice as
large as the United States. By contrast, the North Pole region consists of the
Arctic Ocean surrounded by margins of North America, Europe and Asia.
Another big difference is that man, animals and
plants have slowly migrated northward to North Pole region, as they have
adapted them-selves to polar environment. But the South Pole region, separated
by hundreds of miles of ocean from all continents except South America, has no
land animals and no native population. The plant life is so scare there that
the only things growing are lichens mosses, grasses and a few flower-in plants.
By the way, one of the reasons why the penguin
can continue to live in this area so happily is that it has no land enemies to
contend with.
What about the climate in the Antarctic region?
It has two chief characteristics: Low temperatures even summer and the
world's greatest blizzards in winter. In the North Pole area, air currents rise
from the surrounding waters and help raise the temperature a bit. But in
Antarctica, which has a huge icecap spreading over most of it, large, cold,
high-pressure air masses develop, and so the climate is much more severe that
in the North Pole region.
Even during the summer months, the average
temperature in Antarctica is below freezing! Now and then, during some summer
days, the temperature may rise to 40 degrees, but on the other hand
temperatures below zero may also occur right in the middle of the summer. And
in the winter, the temperature at the South Pole averages from 10 to 30 degrees
below ZERO!
