Arctic and Antarctic: where they are and how they differ

The poles are the northern and southernmost territories in the world. By geographic pole we mean the point where the meridians converge towards the axis of rotation of the celestial body. Around this point the polar regions extend, they are united by having an extremely rigid climate and the presence of characteristic animal species, but the Arctic and Antarctica, are for various and different reasons, two regions in the antipodes. Let’s get to know the Arctic and Antarctic better: where they are and how they differ Arctic and Antarctic: where they are and how they differ Geographers from ancient Greece knew of the existence of ice and polar bears in the Far North, hence the name of the Arctic that comes from from “Arctos,” the bear. The south, on the other hand, for the Greeks always, was Antarctica (Antarctica) that until the 19th century was known as the »Unknown Southern Land», imagined by the Greeks, but discovered more than 2000 years later… LocationLocated almost 20,000 kilometers away , the South Pole and North Pole regions show three sets of differences. Antarctica is an Antarctic continent, with mountains that reach an altitude of 4,897 meters and are covered by an ice sheet with an average thickness of 2,300 meters. The South Pole is at an altitude of 2,835 meters, while the Arctic is a sea, the Arctic Ocean of Ice, a kind of Polar Mediterranean. The North Pole is located in the sea covered by a changing mantle of 1 to 4 meters of ice with sea depths of 3,100 to 5,000 meters. Although the cold can be extreme there, the sea softens the climate of Spitsbergen, the west coast of Greenland and the Bering Strait.Animals The Arctic is surrounded by land and is therefore rich in a variety of terrestrial flora and fauna: polar foxes, caribou, musk oxen, owls, geese … inhabit the tundra. The polar bear reigns over the ice floes. Antarctica could not be colonized by mammals because the Antarctic continent was too far from other lands. Antarctica however has become an extraordinary refuge for marine life. Its beaches abound with sea lions, seals, sea elephants, penguins and its coasts are populated by cetaceans Colonization The Arctic at the north pole was colonized 23,000 years ago by the first hunting peoples, then by the white man who sacrificed penguins, whales, walruses and animals The Antarctic or Antarctic continent that surrounds the South Pole was not discovered until 1821 and has no indigenous peoples. Europeans carried out their massacres there “only” 50 years, especially on the subantarctic islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. Since then, treaties have governed this continent.Icebergs In the Arctic, icebergs come mainly from caps that flow into the sea, corseted between rocks, giving rise to jagged glaciers that descend and break into crevices: icebergs there often be small and exceptionally massive. Antarctica, on the other hand, has the largest icebergs in the world: giant masses that float in the ocean to run aground at the headlands of the Ross Sea or in the South Orkney Islands. In proportion to this immense continent, the spectacle is breathtaking.