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Nearly all of Antarctica is covered by a sheet of ice that is, on average, at least 1,500 m (5,000 ft) thick. Antarctica contains 90% of the world's ice and more than 70% of its fresh water. If all the land-ice covering Antarctica were to melt — around 30 × 10 ^ 6 km 3 (7.2 × 10 ^ 6 cu mi) of ice — the seas would rise by over 60 m (200 ft ...
Antarctica has the lowest naturally occurring temperature ever recorded: −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) at Vostok Station in 1983. [4] It is also extremely dry (technically a desert , or so called polar desert ), averaging 166 millimetres (6.5 in) of precipitation per year, as weather fronts rarely penetrate far into the continent.
Regulated tourism in Antarctica brings about awareness, and encourages the investment and public support needed to preserve Antarctica's distinctive environment. [134] An unmitigated loss of ice on land and sea could greatly reduce its attractiveness. [135] Policy can be used to increase climate-change resilience through the protection of ...
Antarctica is surrounded on all sides by the Southern Ocean. As a result, high-speed winds circle around Antarctica, preventing warmer air from temperate zones from reaching the continent. While Antarctica does have some small areas of tundra on the northern fringes, the vast majority of the continent is extremely cold and permanently frozen.
It’s been a strange stretch for the icy desert at the bottom of the world. In mid-March, temperatures in parts of East Antarctica soared 70 degrees Fahrenheit
Antarctica lost a staggering 280% more ice mass in the 2000s and 2010s than it lost in the 1980s and 1990s, according to a 2019 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The weather in Antarctica can be highly variable, and weather conditions will oftentimes change dramatically in a short period of time. Weather conditions on the continent are classified in a number of ways, and restrictions placed upon workers and other staffs vary both by stations and by nations.
The William Glacier in Antarctica partially collapsed in the same week as Antarctica's hottest recorded day at 65 degrees Fahrenheit.