Cold facts

Impress your class, friends and family with else cool facts!

Cool Facts

Antarctica is the coldest, windiest and driest continent in the world.

Emperor penguins and Arctic Terns are the only animals to stay all year round in Antarctica.

The killer whale is actually a type of dolphin.

The Blue whale is the largest animal. They can be up to 33m in length and 181 tonnes.

The Albatross is the largest seabird – their wing span reaches 3.5m.

Penguins and albatrosses throw up their food to feed their chicks – this is called regurgitation.

The coldest temperature ever recorded was in Antarctica – it reached -89°C.

Pets, soil and polystyrene cups aren’t allowed in Antarctica.

Codfish are able to live in subfreezing water by having ‘anti-freeze’ blood (they are not the same cod as the ones we eat in with chips!).

Krill is the most common animal in the ocean and probably the world!.

The South Pole was first reached in 1911.

The first time anyone set foot on Antarctica was 1821.

Antarctica has no native population.

There are approximately 25,000 summer tourists.

Approximately 1,000 researchers live in Antarctica in winter.

It is estimated that if Antarctica’s ice sheets melted the worlds oceans would rise by 60-65 metres.

One of the biggest icebergs ever broke free from the Ross ice shelf in Antarctica in 2000. It was 295km (183 miles) long and 37km (23 miles) wide.

A full grown blue whale eats about 4 million krill per day.

The ‘Dry Valleys’ in Antarctica were a testing ground for the Viking mission to Mars because it is so cold and dry there.

The winter sea ice in Antarctica doubles the size of Antarctica.

The winter sea ice in Antarctica is equivalent to 50 UK’s, 2 Australia’s and 1.5 USA’s – this forms, breaks up and melts every year.

The icecaps represent between 60-70% off the world’s fresh water. 
Antarctica is so cold nothing can rot.

On average, Antarctica is 17 degrees colder than the Arctic.

The countries of the world have agreed to waive ownership claims on the area, instead agreeing to jointly pursue scientific research.