• Question: What is the temperature in the North Pole?

    Asked by 482furk49 to Chris, Kathryn, Sarah on 16 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Chris Werner

      Chris Werner answered on 16 Nov 2017:

      It ranges between 0 celsius in the summer and down to -40 celsius in the winter. The temperature is so low in the winter because of the lack of sun, no light for months! Its still cold during the summer even though there is 24 hour sunlight because of the albedo/reflectiveness of the snow and ice, most of the sun rays can’t heat the ground as its being reflected, white surfaces rebound light, while black absorbs them. You can feel the effects of this if you wear either a white or black t-shirt on a sunny day, you get much hotter in the black!

    • Photo: Sarah Guerin

      Sarah Guerin answered on 16 Nov 2017:

      Yup Chris is bang on- even 0 degrees is due to global warming, without climate change it would always be below freezing point. What’s interesting is that the South Pole is much much colder- it’s always less than -25 degrees Celsius, even in Summer. This is because Antarctica- where the south pole is- is drier and higher (mountainous). It’s also further away from warm oceans, and isn’t connected to any other countries like the Artic (North Pole) is.

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