Antarctica
– Earth’s southernmost continent, containing the geographic South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14.0 million km2 (5.4 million sq. mi), it is the fifth-largest continent in area after Asia, Africa, North America, and South America.
Water
– The Antarctic bottom water (AABW) is a type of water mass in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica with temperatures ranging from -0.8 to 2 °C (31 °F), salinity from 34.6 to 34.7 psu. Being the densest water mass of the World Ocean, AABW is found to occupy the depth range below 4000 m of all ocean basins that have a connection to the Southern Ocean at that level.
Land
– Antarctica has very vast landforms. It is almost totally covered in Glacier ice. Antarctica also has many mountains. Ice shelves fringe most of the continents coastline.
Animals
– The most abundant and best-known animals from the southern continent. Penguins, whales seals, albatrosses, other seabirds and a whole range of invertebrates you may have not heard of such as krill which form the basis of the Antarctic food web.
Climate
– The continent is snow- and ice-covered, with freezing temperatures all year round. So-called “Catabian winds” can cause violent snowstorms that can last for days, and sometimes-even weeks, making it very dangerous to stay outside. Antarctica knows periods of continual daylight an darkness, called “polar summer” (end May – Sept) and “polar winter” (end Nov – March).
Temperature
– Scientists have measured what is likely the highest temperature ever on Antarctica: 63.5 degrees Fahrenheit (17.5 Celsius). The measurements were made last Tuesday at Argentina’s Esperanza Base, on the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, according to the meteorological website Weather Underground. The previous hottest known temperature on the continent was 62.8°F (17.1°C), recorded at Esperanza Base on April 24, 1961.
Living Conditions
– Antarctica has no native human population. It is a hostile environment and living there is extremely difficult. Researchers from a number of countries occupy the continent at various bases. Ship and air support provide the transportation of personnel, equipment, cargo and supplies. This includes vehicles, food, fuel, research equipment, clothing, etc.
Ecosystem
– Antarctic krill is the keystone species of the ecosystem of the Southern Ocean, and is an important food organism for whales, seals, Leopard Seals, fur seals, Crab eater Seals, squid, ice fish, penguins, albatrosses and many other birds.
Blue ice
– Blue ice occurs when snow falls on a glacier, is compressed, and becomes part of a glacier that winds its way toward a body of water. During its travels, air bubbles that are trapped in the ice are squeezed out, and the size of the ice crystals increases, making it blue. In some areas, earthquakes have raised the blue ice above the ground and created formations much like large frozen waves.
Katabatic
– They are a phenomenon of nature, but they are no friends to those of us who are mere summertime outsiders. Katabatic form by cold air masses descending onto the ice cap and spreading along the ground. There is nothing to stop them, so they form sheet-like rivers of air and blowing snow.
CFC: chlorofluorocarbon
– Ozone depletion describes two distinct but related phenomena observed since the late 1970s: a steady decline of about 4% in the total volume of ozone in Earth’s stratosphere (the ozone layer), and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone around Earth’s polar regions. The latter phenomenon is referred to as the ozone hole. In addition to these well-known stratospheric phenomena, there are also springtime polar tropospheric ozone depletion events.
Crevasses
– Distributed across Antarctica and are narrower at depth as it is here that pieces of the glacier may rub and break against each other. Crevasse size often depends upon the amount of liquid water present in the glacier. AT crevasse may be as deep as 45 meters, as wide as 20 meters, and can be up to several hundred meters long.
Glacier
– Antarctic glaciers are beautiful and awe-inspiring. They affect us through their connections with the ocean and sea level, and environmental change is having rapid consequences in Antarctica. Antarctica is the world’s largest ice sheet, covering ~14,000,000 km2. Much of the ice sheet surface lies above 3000 m above sea level. This massive thickness of ice drowns whole mountain ranges, and numerous volcanoes exist underneath the icy exterior. It’s the world’s fifth largest continent, and it is, on average, the highest and coldest continent. Antarctica provides a unique record of the Earth’s past climate, through the geomorphological record of glacier moraines, through ice cores, through deep-sea sediment cores, and through past records of sea level rise.
Ice sheet
– The Antarctic ice sheet is one of the two polar ice caps of the Earth. It covers about 98% of the Antarctic continent and is the largest single mass of ice on Earth. It covers an area of almost 14 million square km (5.4 million sq. miles) and contains 26.5 million cubic km of ice(6.36 million cubic miles).
Ice shelf
– Ice shelves are attached to 44% of the Antarctic coastline. Their total area is 1,541,700 km². Names are also listed in the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, Gazetteer. The ice shelf areas are listed below, clockwise, starting in the west of East Antarctica.
Iceberg
– Icebergs are pieces of ice that formed on land and float in an ocean or lake. Icebergs come in all shapes and sizes, from ice-cube-sized chunks to ice islands the size of a small country. The term “iceberg” refers to chunks of ice larger than 5 meters (16 feet) across. Smaller icebergs, known as bergy bits and growlers, can be especially dangerous for ships because they are harder to spot. The North Atlantic and the cold waters surrounding Antarctica are home to most of the icebergs on Earth.
Noatak
– Numerous exposures of Pleistocene sediments occur in the Noatak basin, which extends for 130 km along the Noatak River in northwestern Alaska. Nk-37, an extensive bluff exposure near the west end of the basin, contains a record of at least three glacial advances separated by interglacial and interstitial deposits. An ancient river-cut bluff and associated debris apron is exposed in profile through the central part of Nk-37. The debris apron contains a rich biotic record and represents part of an interglaciation that is probably assignable to marine-isotope stage 5. Pollen spectra from the lower part of the debris apron closely resemble modern samples taken from the Noatak floodplain in spruce gallery forest, and macrofossils of spruce are also present at this level. Fossil bark beetles and carpenter ants occur higher in the debris apron. Mutual Climatic Range (MCR) estimates from the fossil beetles suggest temperatures similar to or warmer than today. Together, these fossils indicate the presence of an interglacial spruce forest in the western part of the Noatak Basin, which lies about 80 km upstream of the modern limit of spruce forest.
pack ice sastrugi:hard ripples in the snow or ice that are caused by winds
Sledge
– A vehicle of various forms, mounted on runners and often drawn by draft animals, used for traveling or for conveying loads over snow, ice, rough ground, etc.
whiteout
– Whiteout is a weather condition in which visibility and contrast are severely reduced by snow or sand. The horizon disappears completely and there are no reference points at all, leaving the individual with a distorted orientation. Whiteout has been defined as: “A condition of diffuse light when no shadows are cast, due to a continuous white cloud layer appearing to merge with the white snow surface. No surface irregularities of the snow are visible, but a dark object may be clearly seen. There is no visible horizon.”
http://antarcticagsms.weebly.com/antarctica-landforms-and-features.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Bottom_Water
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/150331-antarctica-hottest-temperature-climate-change-global-warming-science/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_ecozone
http://www.saasta.ac.za/antarctica/pdfs/poster_antarctica_02.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_ice_%28glacial%29
http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_ice_sheet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crevasse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icebergs.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Antarctic_ice_shelves
http://instaar.colorado.edu/aaar/journal_issues/abstract.php?id=2194
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sledge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteout_%28weather%29
Antarctica is at the bottom or south on the earth. It covers the South Pole with a surface area approximately twice the size of Australia. 
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