Reader's Digest Australia Dec/Jan 2025

Ice, Ice, Baby! All About Antarctica 1 The North Pole gets all the attention this time of year, but what about the South Pole? The southern- most spot on earth and Antarctica, the conti- nent it sits on, are sur- real. At the South Pole, the sun rises just once a year—and doesn’t set until six months later. The landscape: snow and ice as far as the eye can see, and that ice ex- tends down more than a mile. In some places, it’s almost 3 miles thick. 2 Few have set foot in Antarctica. Its only inhabitants— between 1,000 and 5,000 people, depend- ing on the season—live at one of 70 permanent research stations on the continent. Their food has to be flown or shipped in, since it can’t be grown in the ground. Between the scientists and their support staff, roughly 3,000 Americans are stationed in Antarctica annually. To minimize their environmental impact, most of the garbage they generate gets shipped back to the United States. BY Emily Goodman reader ’ s digest 30   December 2025/January 2026 illustration by Serge Bloch 13 THINGS 3 All countries conducting re- search in Antarc- tica have promised to adhere to the Antarctic Treaty, which desig- nates the continent as a place to be used only for peaceful and scien- tific purposes. The flags of all 12 original signers of the 1959 treaty (Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the U.K., the U.S. and the USSR) are flown around the South Pole. 4 The first person to reach the South Pole was Roald Amundsen of Norway. He and his team arrived on Dec. 14, 1911. Just weeks later, Englishman Robert F. Scott and his party found the tent that Amundsen’s team left behind, which told the Brits that they had been beaten to it. Both ex- plorers are immortal- ized at the South Pole with a plaque—and in the name of the U.S.- run Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. 5 People at that station celebrate Christmas with an annual Race Around the World. It’s just for fun, and some partici- pants tackle it on skis, sleds or motorized vehicles. The “course,” while only 2 miles long, crosses every line of longitude—since they all meet at the poles. 6 It’s very cold in Antarctica, around minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit this time of year—and it’s summer in the Southern Hemi- sphere. In the winter, temps can drop to mi- nus 112 degrees, and the coldest temperature ever recorded there was minus 128.6 degrees. The closer to the coast, the warmer it gets. It can even climb to a balmy 50 degrees. 7 No polar bears live in Antarctica. No dogs either, even though sled dogs played a huge role in helping Amundsen reach the South Pole. Dogs have been banned since 1994 because of concerns about their impact on native spe- cies. For one thing, dogs like to go after birds, and Antarctica is home to an estimated 20 million penguins. 8 While it contains 90% of earth’s ice and 70% of earth’s fresh water, Antarctica counts as a desert be- cause it gets so little snowfall—less than 2 inches per year. That makes Antarctica the driest continent. It’s also the windiest. The highest wind speed re- corded there: 199 mph. A small wind farm on one of Antarctica’s is- lands generates enough energy to replace more than 100,000 gallons of diesel fuel. 9 Antarctica is roughly the size of the U.S. and Mexico put together. But, as anyone who has put an ice tray in the freezer knows, ice takes up more space than water. In winter, the sea ice in Antarctica can Art of Living readersdigest.com.au     31