Exploration History
Antarctic Facts

Some Facts About Antarctica

• Contrary to popular belief, there are no polar bears in Antarctica
• The areas around the coast of Antarctica are amongst the cloudiest places in the world
• In the interior of Antarctica, the temperature is <50°C
• Temperature records show that the annual mean temperature in some regions have increased by about 2.5°C over 50 years.
• In global terms, 90% of the world's ice is located in the Antarctic. If melted, the Antarctic ice sheet would raise sea levels by around 70 metres. Its purity is unmatched anywhere else in the world.
• Only 0.6% of the continent is free of ice and the surrounding ocean provides a virtually impenetrable barrier of sea ice which in winter covers an area around one and half times the area of the continent.
• The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest single mass of ice on Earth. It covers an area of almost 14 million km 2 and contains 30 million km 3 of ice.
• At Cape Denison, on the Adélie Land coast, Sir Douglas Mawson's 1912-13 expedition recorded a world record annual mean wind speed of 19.4 metres per second and experienced gale-force winds on all but one of 203 consecutive winter days.
• Vostok station holds the record for the lowest ever temperature recorded at the surface of the Earth (-89.5°C)
• Antarctic sea ice provides a home for many biological organisms in some of the most productive waters in the world.
• Antarctica has some of the most spectacular mountain ranges anywhere in the World. The most extensive are the Antarctic Peninsula, 1700 km, and the Transantarctic Mountains, 3000 km. The highest mountain, Vinson Massif in the Ellsworth Mountains, peaks at 4897 m.