What Is The Weather Like In Antarctica?

The Antarctic weather helps to control the climate of all the globe. It produces more cold air than any other place in the world. The ice-crisp air rolls down the polar slopes toward the coast, building up to gusts of 140 to 145 miles (225 to 233 kilometres) per hour along the coastline. In fact, wind chill has proved to be the most debilitating factor in Antarctic exploration. Eventually, this wind sweeps across Chile and Argentina and parts of Australia and New Zealand, thus contributing greatly to the "air conditioning" of our home, the Earth.

The Antarctic Ocean actually is part of the earth's one great ocean. It converges with the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. But it has characteristics peculiar to itself. It is colder and less salty than are the oceans to the north. Cold ocean waters move northward, then sink below the warmer waters at the "convergence" where the Antarctic Ocean meets the northern oceans and spreads far north beyond the equator. When the waters flowing southward in the western parts of the other oceans meet the cold Antarctic waters, they turn eastward to form the Circumpolar Current, which travels in an irregular path completely around the earth in the vicinity of 47° to 61° south latitude.