9781422279205

E X P L O R I N G T H E P O L A R R E G I O N S T O D AY

A ntarctica and the A rctic Facts, Figures, and Stories

BY JIM GIGLIOTTI

E X P L O R I N G T H E P O L A R R E G I O N S T O D AY

A ntarctica and the A rctic Facts, Figures, and Stories A ntarctic W ildlife A rctic C ulture The People of the Ice A rctic W ildlife C limate C hange and the P olar R egions O il and G as in the A rctic P olar E xploration Courage and Controversy P olar P olitics Earth’s Next Battlegrounds?

E X P L O R I N G T H E P O L A R R E G I O N S T O D AY A ntarctica and the A rctic Facts, Figures, and Stories

BY J IM GIGLIOTTI

MASON CREST

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© 2018 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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First printing 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-3863-9 ISBN: 978-1-4222-3865-3 ebook ISBN: 978-1-4222-7920-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with the publisher.

Developed and Produced by Shoreline Publishing Group. Developmental Editor: James Buckley, Jr. Design: Tom Carling, Carling Design Inc. Production: Sandy Gordon www.shorelinepublishing.com

Front cover: Adobe Stock Images/Nightman

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C ontents

Introduction................................................................................................... 6 1 Brrrr!.....................................................................................8 2 Getting There.................................................................. 22 3 The Polar Regions in Pop Culture.............................. 34 4 In the News..................................................................... 48 Find Out More........................................................................................... 62

Series Glossary of Key Terms............................................................... 63

Index/Author.............................................................................................. 64

Key Icons to Look For

Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Educational Videos : Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic mo- ments, and much more!

Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here.

Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains ter- minology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

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ANTARCTICA AND THE ARCTIC: FACTS, FIGURES, AND STORIES

I ntroduction

B undled in his down jacket,plastic boots onhis feet, skis at the ready, explorer and adventurer Johan Ernst Nilsonwas struggling with his equip- ment at theNorth Pole when he had a sickening feeling:He could sense the icewas crackingbeneathhim.Seconds later, Johanwas no longer standing on anything solid. He was in the frigid

waters of the Arctic. He was tired, he was wet,hewas freezing…and he still had 12 months of this journey to go! Johan was just starting out on his yearlong trekfromtheNorthPole to the SouthPole—fromtheArctic to theAnt- arctic. Those polar regions long have captured the imagination of real-life explorers and armchair adventurers

alike. From the ancient Greeks in search of new lands in which to trade… to 19th-century explorers racing to become the first to reach the North and South Poles…to modern scientists and research- ers studying the effects of climate change on our planet, the Arctic and the Antarctichavedrawnmen and women in search of adventure andknowledge. But no one had ever gone all the way fromone pole to the other until Jo- han did it on a trip that began inApril of 2011 and ended in March of 2012. Johan began by skiing 47 days from the North

When ice cracks underfoot of visitors to the Arctic regions, they might find themselves in freezing water.

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Introduction

Johan Ernst Nilson followed in the footsteps of a century-plus of adventurers who braved the elements of the North and South Poles.

Pole in the Arctic. He rode a bike throughCanada and theUnitedStates. Healsousedkite-ski,sled,andsailboat as he navigated into South America, crossed the equator, and reached the South Pole inAntarctica. It wasn’t all smooth sailing…or sledding. Johan fought through tropical hurricanes.He cracked his ribs.He suffered frostbite. And, of course, he fell into the icy waters of the Arctic. Although there was nothing funny about falling into the ice at the time, he can laugh about it now. “When it’s minus-twenty de-

grees outside, it takes two days just to warm up!” Yes, it does get to –20°F in the Arctic—and colder. Read on to learn just how much colder…and to learn other facts andfigures about theArctic and the Antarctic, as well as the sto- ries of Johan and other adventurers past and present who explore the polar regions.We hope this book gives you an overview of theArctic and the Antarctic that will inspire you to read more in the exciting series Exploring the Polar Regions Today .

Both polar regions are covered for many thousands of square miles by forbidding, ice-covered stretches.

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Brrrr!

Words to Understand

balmy  mild constellation  an arrangement of stars fluctuates  shifts back and forth hemisphere  the northern or southern half of the Earth as divided by the equator morphs  changes in form tongue-in-cheek  jokingly, sarcastically

T hink it’s cold where you live?Well, let’s say you’re in Buffalo, New York. It can get pretty chilly there. Winter tempera- tures in January average a high of about 31°F (–0.6°C). It’s even colder in Minneapolis, where the high temperature averages 24°F (–4.4°C) in the first full month of winter. Of course, it’s all relative: In LosAngeles, California, they consider it cold anytime the high thermometer reading dips below 60°F (15°C)—which it doesn’t do very often. But all of that is nothing compared to the frigid conditions in the Arctic and the Antarctic.

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ANTARCTICA AND THE ARCTIC: FACTS, FIGURES, AND STORIES

The Poles On a globe, the Arctic is at the very top, in the northern hemi- sphere . The Antarctic is at the bottom, in the southern hemi- sphere. The North Pole, then, is in the Arctic; the South Pole is in Antarctica. But while the South Pole is a fixed point of land (or, more precisely, ice-covered land), the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.The water there is 13,400 feet (4,084 meters) deep. The ice sheets in the Arctic Ocean are up to 10 feet (3 meters) thick and always on the move, so there’s no actual pole there! A pole planted in the ice could soon be miles away. TheArctic is part of an area called theArctic Circle. Scientists sometimes use the northern limit of the tree line as the border for the Arctic. The Arctic tree line is the northernmost point where trees can grow; beyond that,where it’s too cold for trees, is tundra, a treeless area of plain with permanently frozen subsoil. Antarctica is its own continent. Scientists believe that several hundred million years ago, the landmass on the Earth existed in one supercontinent called Pangaea. About 175 million years ago, the land began breaking into seven smaller continents. In addition toAntarctica, the other continents areAfrica,Asia,Aus- tralia, Europe, North America, and South America. The Arctic is water (the Arctic Ocean) surrounded by the land of North America, Russia, and Europe; the Antarctic is land (mostly covered in ice that can be up to three miles thick) surrounded by water.

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Brrrr!

This overhead view of a portion of the Arctic coastline shows well the flat plains of sea ice that ring the heavier concentrations of glaciers and ice masses.

The Arctic got its name from a Greek word (spelled “arktos” in English) meaning “bear.”That’s a reference to the constella- tion Ursa Major. Its most famous grouping of stars is commonly known as the “Big Dipper,” but “ursa” was a Roman word mean- ing “bear,” and the Greeks took their lead from that. Antarctica comes from the Greek “antarktos,” which is a combination of

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ANTARCTICA AND THE ARCTIC: FACTS, FIGURES, AND STORIES

“ante” and “arktos.” In Greek,“ante”means “opposite.”Antarctica is the polar opposite of the Arctic on the globe. How Cold Is It? The coldest temperature ever recorded on earth was –128.6°F (–89.2°C) in Vostok, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983. (By contrast, the average high temperature for Phoenix, Arizona, on that day each year is 106°F/41°C.)

Russian scientists brave one of the coldest places on Earth to maintain a science station at Vostok on the Antarctic continent.

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Brrrr!

Theaverage temperature inAntarcticawarmsup to–58°F(–5°C) during the summer months—still not exactly balmy weather. The record low temperature for the Arctic is –90°F (–68°C), on a couple of different occasions in parts of Russia. The coldest temperature ever recorded in the United States came at Prospect Creek,Alaska, just above theArctic Circle, in 1971: –80°F (–62°C). The ordinary freezing point of water, of course, is 32 degrees Fahrenheit— above zero. (Thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit is zero degrees Celsius.) So there’s no shortage of ice in the Arctic and the Antarctic! Ice, Ice Baby There’s plenty of ice in the Arctic and Antarctica, but not all ice is created equal.There’s frazil ice, grease ice, pack ice (also called sea ice), annual ice,multiyear ice, glaciers, icebergs, and lots, lots more.Who knew there were so many types of ice? When the surface areas of seawater, like that in the Arctic Ocean, begin to freeze, they form a loose, slushy mixture called frazil ice. It morphs into grease ice, which is still thin and soupy, but sturdier than frazil ice.When grease ice thickens to a more solid version, it is pack ice. Pack ice that melts in the summer and then re-forms in winter is called annual ice. Pack ice that doesn’t completely melt in the summer is called multi-year ice. There are dozens of other types of ice, most of which are re- flected in their name. Anchor ice is attached to the bottom of a sea or river. Brash ice consists of fragments from the wreckage

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ANTARCTICA AND THE ARCTIC: FACTS, FIGURES, AND STORIES

of other ice.Tongue ice is the part of the ice edge that sticks out, sometimes asmuch as several kilometers.You can probably guess the shape of pancake ice. When the fresh water of snow compacts into ice, like that in Antarctica, it forms massive, slow-moving shelves of ice called glaciers. Continental glaciers cover almost all of Antarctica: about 98 percent of it. But yes, there are still that 2 percent of ice-free areas inAntarctica.The largest ice-free region is called the McMurdo Dry Valleys. An iceberg is a large chunk of floating ice that has broken off from a glacier. But there’s a reason for the old saying that something is “just the tip of the iceberg”—meaning there is a lot more to an issue than you can see.About 90 percent of the size of an iceberg is below the surface of the water.The most infamous iceberg in history was the one that the British passenger ship

Just the Facts

Arctic (incl. North Pole)

Antarctic (incl. South Pole)

Location

Latitude 90° North

Latitude 90° South

Avg. temp. (summer) 32°F (0°C)

–18°F (–28°C)

Avg. temp. (winter) –40°F (–40°C)

–76°F (–60°C)

Area

5.4 million sq. mi. (14 million sq km) 6 million sq. mi. (15.5 sq km)

Coastline

25,000 miles (40,233 km)

18,000 miles (28,968 km)

Population

4,000,000

1,000–4,000