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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.
It is believed that the loss of the ice sheet would take between 2,000 and 13,000 years, although several centuries of high emissions may shorten this to 500 years. 3.3 m (10 ft 10 in) of sea level rise would occur if the ice sheet collapses but leaves ice caps on the mountains behind, and 4.3 m (14 ft 1 in) if those melt as well.
The ice dome known as Dome Argus in East Antarctica is the highest Antarctic ice feature, at 4,091 metres (13,422 ft). It is one of the world's coldest and driest places—temperatures there may reach as low as −90 °C (−130 °F), and the annual precipitation is 1–3 cm (0.39–1.18 in).
Ice caps accumulate snow on their upper surfaces, and ablate snow on their lower surfaces. [6] An ice cap in equilibrium accumulates and ablates snow at the same rate. The AAR is the ratio between the accumulation area and the total area of the ice cap, which is used to indicate the health of the glacier. [6]
Global warming is also affecting Antarctica. The Larsen Ice Shelf or Larsen A is an ice sheet on the Antarctic Peninsula. The sheet broke in 1995, and then in 2000 an iceberg that is 4,250 sq mi (11,000 km 2) broke off the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. [34] In 2002 Larsen B, which was 5,500 km 2 (2,100 sq mi), broke off.
Around 98% of continental Antarctica is covered in ice up to 4.7 kilometres (2.9 mi) thick. [1] Antarctica's icy deserts have extremely low temperatures, high solar radiation, and extreme dryness. [2] Any precipitation that does fall usually falls as snow, and is restricted to a band around 300 kilometres (186 mi) from the coast.
A half-mile of ice isn't enough to suffocate life. A team of scientists who drilled into one of Antarctica's subglacial lakes last year says the lake is pretty well-packed with living things. The ...
A polar ice cap or polar cap is a high-latitude region of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite that is covered in ice. [ 1 ] There are no requirements with respect to size or composition for a body of ice to be termed a polar ice cap, nor any geological requirement for it to be over land, but only that it must be a body of solid phase ...