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Antarctica: The Coldest Continent Facts

Antarctica is the coldest continent, with winter temperatures reaching as low as −128.6 °F, and features the highest mountain, Mt Vinson, at 4,892 meters. The continent includes unique geographical features like the McMurdo Dry Valleys, one of the driest places on Earth, and Mount Erebus, the southernmost active volcano. Antarctica experiences two seasons, with summer from October to February, attracting around 30,000 tourists annually to its pristine wilderness.

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51 views11 pages

Antarctica: The Coldest Continent Facts

Antarctica is the coldest continent, with winter temperatures reaching as low as −128.6 °F, and features the highest mountain, Mt Vinson, at 4,892 meters. The continent includes unique geographical features like the McMurdo Dry Valleys, one of the driest places on Earth, and Mount Erebus, the southernmost active volcano. Antarctica experiences two seasons, with summer from October to February, attracting around 30,000 tourists annually to its pristine wilderness.

Uploaded by

msiddharth15
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

ANTARCTICA

The coldest
continent in
the world
weather
By far the coldest continent, Antarctica has winter temperatures that range from −128.6
°F (−89.2 °C), the world's lowest recorded temperature, measured at Vostok Station
(Russia) on July 21, 1983, on the high inland ice sheet to −76 °F (−60 °C) near sea
level.
Mountains
- Transantarctic range

The Transantarctic range contains many peaks above 4000m; however, the
highest mountain in Antarctica, Mt Vinson, is part of the Ellsworth Mountains
located in the western area of the continent near the Antarctic Peninsula. Mt
Vinson reaches 4892m above sea level – a little higher than Mont Blanc in the
European Alps.
Mcmurdo dry valleys - a cold desert
The McMurdo Dry Valleys are a row of largely snow-free valleys in
Antarctica, located within Victoria Land west of McMurdo Sound.[1]
The Dry Valleys experience extremely low humidity and surrounding
mountains prevent the flow of ice from nearby glaciers. The rocks
here are granites and gneisses, and glacial tills dot this bedrock
landscape, with loose gravel covering the ground. It is one of the
driest places on Earth,[2] though there are several anecdotal
accounts of rainfall within the Dry Valleys.[3][4]
Volcanoes in antarctica
Mount Erebus is the southernmost active volcano on Earth, located on
Ross Island in the Ross Dependency in Antarctica. With a summit
elevation of 3,792 metres, it is the second most prominent mountain in
Antarctica and the second-highest volcano in Antarctica.
Antarctic summer days
Antarctica only has two seasons: summer and winter. Because it's located in the southern
hemisphere, Antarctica's summer is from October to February. During this time, the sun is
almost always in the sky. Days rapidly get longer there in summer, until, eventually, the sun
doesn't set at all
Facts about Antartica
As well as being the world's most important natural laboratory, the Antarctic is a
place of great beauty and wonder. Its frozen wastes have fired the public
imagination for generations, and around 30,000 tourists now visit the Antarctic
each year to experience what life is like in the Earth's last great wilderness.
Winters in Antartica
In an Antarctic winter, it is so cold that the sea freezes, forming briney sea ice that surrounds the
continent. In summer, most of the sea ice melts. The area of sea ice in winter is about six times as
big as the area of sea ice in summer, with an average 3 million km 2 in summer and 18 million km2
in winter.
Glaciers
Thwaites Glacier is an unusually broad and vast Antarctic glacier located east of Mount Murphy, on
the Walgreen Coast of Marie Byrd Land. It was initially sighted by polar researchers in 1940, mapped
in 1959–1966 and officially named in 1967, after the late American glaciologist Fredrik T. Thwaites.
Bibliography

WIKIPEDIA
BRITANNICA
THANK YOU

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