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A speculative representation of Antarctica labelled as ' Terra Australis Incognita ' on Jan Janssonius's Zeekaart van het Zuidpoolgebied (1657), Het Scheepvaartmuseum The name given to the continent originates from the word antarctic, which comes from Middle French antartique or antarctique ('opposite to the Arctic') and, in turn, the Latin antarcticus ('opposite to the north').
Antarctica is the largest ice desert in the world. Some 98% of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet , the world's largest ice sheet and also its largest reservoir of fresh water . Averaging at least 1.6 km thick, the ice is so massive that it has depressed the continental bedrock in some areas more than 2.5 km below sea level ...
Surface temperature of Antarctica in winter and summer from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. The climate of Antarctica is the coldest on Earth.The continent is also extremely dry (it is a desert [1]), averaging 166 mm (6.5 in) of precipitation per year.
McMurdo Dry Valleys, Landsat 7 imagery acquired on December 18, 1999 The Dry Valleys are so named because of their extremely low humidity and lack of snow or ice cover. They are also dry because, in this location, the mountains are sufficiently high that they block seaward-flowing ice from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet from reaching the Ross
Most of the interior of Antarctica is polar desert, despite the thick ice cover. Conversely, the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, although they have had no ice for thousands of years due to katabatic wind but contain ephemeral streams and hypersaline lakes characteristic of extreme non-polar deserts, are not necessarily polar desert ...
A map of the Antarctic region, including the Antarctic Convergence and the 60th parallel south The Antarctic Plate. The Antarctic (/ æ n ˈ t ɑːr t ɪ k / or / æ n ˈ t ɑːr k t ɪ k /, American English also / æ n t ˈ ɑːr t ɪ k / or / æ n t ˈ ɑːr k t ɪ k /; commonly / æ ˈ n ɑːr t ɪ k /) [Note 1] is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around ...
Rank Name Type Image Area (km 2) Area (sq mi) Location [note 1] Nation(s) 1: Antarctic Desert: Polar ice and tundra: 14,200,000 [1]: 5,482,651: Antarctica: N/A 2: Arctic Desert: Polar ice and tundra
Map of Antarctica with Eastern Antarctica seen to the right. Image of a variety of ice types off the coast of East Antarctica. East Antarctica, also called Greater Antarctica, constitutes the majority (two-thirds) of the Antarctic continent, lying primarily in the Eastern Hemisphere south of the Indian Ocean, and separated from West Antarctica by the Transantarctic Mountains.