why is Antarctica colder than the Artic even though they’re both poles
In: Planetary Science
Cuz Antarctica (the South Pole) is a land mass, while the arctic (North Pole) is ice cap floating on the Arctic Ocean.
Ocean currents, carry heat energy up from the equator, and even though it doesn’t make the arctic very warm, it still makes it warmer than the land locked South Pole, where those ocean currents stop at the coast and you have mile sand miles of solid land just freezing
There is a current that goes all the way around Antarctica that keeps cold polar water from moving north easily. There is also no land nearby to block westerly winds above this current, so it is very hard for water or air around Antarctica to move north.
Antarctica is much larger and also a lot higher from sea level. The southern oceans and wind currents do not move warm tropical water/air close to the Antarctic
Wind and water circulates around Antarctica unobstructed locking in the cold, when Antarctica was connected to Australia it wasn’t as cold, this could possibly happen in the Arctic. https://youtu.be/B3vcZZvvSmk
The Atlantic ocean is dominated by an overturning circulation in which warm water flows northward, cools off, and flows southward. The heat delivered to the North Atlantic is about 20% as much as delivered by the sun! This heat then spreads out and warms the Northern Hemisphere.
Around Antarctica there is a band of open latitudes where the water is at least 2000m deep. Winds at these latitudes push water in the same direction as the earth is spinning. This makes the water drift away from the earth’s axis of spin (in other words to the north) in the same way that if you spin a lasso faster it spreads out more. The cold water from the North Atlantic then upwells in this region, gets freshened and then warmed and completes the circuit.
This pattern appears to date from about 40 million years ago, when Antarctica separated from South America although the exact point in time when these dynamics started to hold is debated.
Once you start building up an ice sheet on Antarctica, the top of that ice sheet gets colder as well.
i don’t know the scientific ins and outs, but transportation routes and all of their implications affect the north pole significantly more, while Antarctica is more removed from shipping routes. anyone gots better info on this topic?
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