Have You Ever Wondered Who Gets Colder - Penguins or Polar Bears?

(Patria) - Both of Earth's poles are located in icy regions, so it's clear that the temperature is extreme. But have you ever wondered who gets colder - penguins or polar bears?

Both poles are cold because the sun never rises more than 23.5 degrees above the horizon at either pole, and both are in darkness for six months.

Even when the sun does appear, its light reflects off vast white ice-covered surfaces, above which the air remains largely just as cold. However, the South Pole is noticeably colder, writes Punkufer.

The South Pole convincingly wins against the North Pole in both seasons with its negative average temperatures.

The average annual temperature at the North Pole is minus 40 degrees in winter and a pleasant zero in summer, while the South Pole is significantly harsher, with an average temperature of minus 60 in winter and minus 28.2 degrees in summer.

The lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth was measured in Antarctica - an unimaginable minus 89.2 degrees. For comparison, the Arctic record, measured in Greenland, is almost twenty degrees higher - it was minus 69.6 degrees.

The biggest reason why the South Pole is so much colder is revealed by looking at the map - the North Pole is in the ocean, and the South Pole is on a continent.

The Arctic, the region around the North Pole, is an ocean surrounded by land, while Antarctica, over which the South Pole glides, is land surrounded by ocean. Since water cools and heats up more slowly than land, temperature extremes are smaller in the north.

In addition, the area around the South Pole has incomparably more ice than the Arctic region around the North Pole. Not only does Antarctica hold 90 percent of the Earth's ice, but it also copes better with climate change, so it melts more slowly.

Additionally, the North Pole is at an altitude of up to one meter, depending on how the pole and the ice floes floating in the Arctic Ocean move, while the South Pole is almost three thousand meters above sea level (at 2,835 meters).

Antarctica is also the highest of all continents - partly thanks to ice several kilometers thick.

Antarctica is also the windiest continent, with hurricane-force winds on the Beaufort scale battering at speeds greater than 320 kilometers per hour.

Winds also blow around the North Pole, but they are not as strong. The land from which they come to the Arctic slows them down, and sometimes allows a warmer gust to mix with the polar air, which does not happen around the South Pole.