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I think ewe may have got those pictures of the South and North poles the wrong way around.
OOOOOH with that Bum of yours you would be a great pole dancer!!This is what I have found...so far in looking!http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2005-06/1118131199.Es.r.htmlMany factors affect temperatures on the earth. Some of the most important are: location, nearness to oceans, land cover, and weather patterns. I’ll speak to the extreme cold at the South Pole, but most of the arguments hold for the North Pole as well.
Aww, it wasn't really all that klevur. Let's see if anyone else can figure it out (I'll just point out that I didn't spot it because I recognised the South Pole base - you can deduce that the pictures are the wrong way around).
I’ll take a guess and say that the North Pole is warmer than the South Pole but, by how much, I don’t know. Even though both “poles” sit upon ice and snow at the most extreme latitudes on Earth (ie, 90°), because the NP sits over water and the SP sits over land (Antarctica), the NP is warmer that the SP because the water under the NP acts as a thermal mass that can only drop to a minimum temperature (approx 0 °C) whereas the Antarctic continent under the SP has the potential of dropping much lower. Also too, everyone knows that the higher up one goes, the cooler the temperature. So, the NP, just several feet above sea level, should be warmer that the SP which, being over a continent, probably has some altitude to it, unless it sits cozily in some sort of “Grand Canyon of Antarctica” – but I’ve never heard of such thing. Cloud cover makes a difference too. A region enshrouded in clouds will retain heat because the clouds act as blankets – that is, the clouds prevent some of the heat from escaping into space and reflects some of that heat back to the planet’s surface. Amazingly, ancient Egyptians had an ice-making process that (ideally) involved putting water in shallow porous bowls set on roofs on cloudless nights. The dampness would partly evaporate from the underside of the bowls, thus drawing off heat, the winds would also assist in drawing heat away, and the cloudless sky would allow the heat of the water in the bowls to radiate into space. The Egyptians would wake in the morning to find the bowls covered with a crust of ice. Cool!Ozone covers the Earth, but a difference between the NP and SP involves the SP having a “hole” in the ozone layer over it. Some folks used to scream about this years ago, but I haven’t heard anything lately, so maybe it no longer exists. If this “hole” continues to exist, it may cause the Sun’s radiation to affect the SP differently than the NP.
I was reading in one article that there was thought to be about a ten degree difference but I do not know what time of year that would be or if they were comparing them in each ones winter or what!
From NASA (http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/scienceques2005/20060310.htm):Quote... how do [the poles’] temperature regimes compare? In a nutshell, the South Pole is colder, a lot colder. Basically, it’s colder not only because it’s more than 9,000 feet (2,743 m) higher but also because it has a higher continentality than its northern counterpart. Continentality is the measure to which a spot on the Earth’s surface if influenced by a landmass. It’s partially based on the distance to the sea or other large moisture source. Theoretically, the coldest minimum temperature should occur where the continentalty is highest. The area around the North Pole consists of ice flows, which are commonly about 10 ft (3m) thick, beneath which lies relatively warm seawater (~28 °F or –2°C). Since the South Pole is near the center of Antarctica, a landmass 1.7 times larger than Australia, and since the North Pole is in an ocean, albeit a frozen one, it’s pretty obvious which one has a higher continentality. ... At the South Pole (Amundsen-Scott Station), the average temperature of the coldest month (August) is approximately –76 °F (–60 °C), and the average temperature of the warmest month (January) is – 18 ºF (–28.2 °C). Records go back at the South Pole to 1957. At the North Pole, long term temperature records aren’t available, but in 2003 a live weather camera and an unmanned weather station were installed on the sea ice. During the last 3 years, the daily temperatures have vacillated between about –40 ºF (–40 ºC) during December and January to a little above freezing (0 ºC) in June, July and August. The seawater below the ice provides enough heat to keep winter temperatures from falling much below about –40º F (–40 ºC).... At the South Pole, temperatures in January average about –18º F (–28º C), while at the North Pole, the January temperatures range from between about –15º F (–26 C) to about –45º F (–43 C) and perhaps average about –30º F (–34 C). Therefore, the average temperature during the warmest month at the South Pole is only about 12 degrees warmer (F) than the coldest month at the North Pole. January is the only month when the North Pole temperatures are colder than those at the South Pole. So, on a day-to-day basis it’s likely that less than 40 days in a given year are colder at the North Pole than the South Pole.
... how do [the poles’] temperature regimes compare? In a nutshell, the South Pole is colder, a lot colder. Basically, it’s colder not only because it’s more than 9,000 feet (2,743 m) higher but also because it has a higher continentality than its northern counterpart. Continentality is the measure to which a spot on the Earth’s surface if influenced by a landmass. It’s partially based on the distance to the sea or other large moisture source. Theoretically, the coldest minimum temperature should occur where the continentalty is highest. The area around the North Pole consists of ice flows, which are commonly about 10 ft (3m) thick, beneath which lies relatively warm seawater (~28 °F or –2°C). Since the South Pole is near the center of Antarctica, a landmass 1.7 times larger than Australia, and since the North Pole is in an ocean, albeit a frozen one, it’s pretty obvious which one has a higher continentality. ... At the South Pole (Amundsen-Scott Station), the average temperature of the coldest month (August) is approximately –76 °F (–60 °C), and the average temperature of the warmest month (January) is – 18 ºF (–28.2 °C). Records go back at the South Pole to 1957. At the North Pole, long term temperature records aren’t available, but in 2003 a live weather camera and an unmanned weather station were installed on the sea ice. During the last 3 years, the daily temperatures have vacillated between about –40 ºF (–40 ºC) during December and January to a little above freezing (0 ºC) in June, July and August. The seawater below the ice provides enough heat to keep winter temperatures from falling much below about –40º F (–40 ºC).... At the South Pole, temperatures in January average about –18º F (–28º C), while at the North Pole, the January temperatures range from between about –15º F (–26 C) to about –45º F (–43 C) and perhaps average about –30º F (–34 C). Therefore, the average temperature during the warmest month at the South Pole is only about 12 degrees warmer (F) than the coldest month at the North Pole. January is the only month when the North Pole temperatures are colder than those at the South Pole. So, on a day-to-day basis it’s likely that less than 40 days in a given year are colder at the North Pole than the South Pole.
Historically the Northern and Southern hemispheres exhibit an anti-correlation in temperature. This is at least partly due to the Atlantic's South Equatorial Current. The SEC is one of the only main surface currents that crosses from South to North, and is originally part of the South Atlantic Sub-tropical Gyre. Most of the warm waters of the SEC are redistributed into the Gulf of Mexico through the Yucatan Current and eventually into the Gulf Stream. A large portion of heat transported by the SEC never makes it back to the high latitude Southern Hemisphere, and instead warms the cozy buns of Candians, Americans, and Europeans That is at least one mechanism that keeps the NH warmer than the SH during periods of high Gulf Stream transport.
Quote from: LeeE on 19/09/2009 18:58:24Aww, it wasn't really all that klevur. Let's see if anyone else can figure it out (I'll just point out that I didn't spot it because I recognised the South Pole base - you can deduce that the pictures are the wrong way around).Spill the beans LeeE. Great observation !
Thanks for the great info Karen....In the above it seems to suggest that perhaps the South Pole is colder than the north !