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The Antarctic ice sheet covers an area of almost 14 million square kilometres (5.4 million square miles) and contains 26.5 million cubic kilometres (6,400,000 cubic miles) of ice. [6] A cubic kilometer of ice weighs approximately 0.92 metric gigatonnes, meaning that the ice sheet weighs about 24,380,000 gigatonnes.
The ice sheet is around 2.2 km (1.4 mi) thick on average and is 4,897 m (16,066 ft) at its thickest point. [78] It is also home to the geographic South Pole, South Magnetic Pole and the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. The surface of the EAIS is the driest, windiest, and coldest place on Earth.
The Patuxent Trough is more than 300 km long and over 15 km wide, while the Offset Rift Basin is 150 km long and 30 km wide. These three troughs all lie under and cross the so-called "ice divide" - the high ice ridge that runs all the way from the South Pole out towards the coast of West Antarctica. [18]
Visualization of the ice and snow covering Earth's northern and southern polar regions Northern Hemisphere permafrost (permanently frozen ground) in purple. The polar regions, also called the frigid zones or polar zones, of Earth are Earth's polar ice caps, the regions of the planet that surround its geographical poles (the North and South Poles), lying within the polar circles.
By measurement of calved ice bergs and their buoyancy, he estimated the ice sheet to be on average 274 meters thick; the undisturbed morphology of the ice sheet and its inverted temperature profile led him to conclude it was floating on water; and measurements in 1902–1903 showed it had advanced 555 meters northwards in 13.5 months. [7]
Sea ice thickness spatial extent, and open water within sea ice packs can vary rapidly in response to weather and climate. [1] Sea ice concentration is measured by satellites, with the Special Sensor Microwave Imager / Sounder (SSMIS), and the European Space Agency's Cryosat-2 satellite to map the thickness and shape of the Earth's polar ice cover. [2]
Earth's North Pole is covered by floating pack ice over the Arctic Ocean. Portions of the ice that do not melt seasonally can get very thick, up to 3–4 meters thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 meters thick. One-year ice is usually about 1 meter thick. The area covered by sea ice ranges between 9 and 12 million km 2.
The ice sheet is around 2.2 km (1.4 mi) thick on average and is 4,897 m (16,066 ft) at its thickest point. [2] It is also home to the geographic South Pole, South Magnetic Pole and the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. The surface of the EAIS is the driest, windiest, and coldest place on Earth.