INTRODUCTIONS n the winter of 19II 12 two explor ers were locked in a race to be the first to reach the South Pole Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen beat British explorer Robert Falcon Scott by more than a month On the way back Scott and his men were trapped in a blizzard and died only 11 miles 18 N kilometers away from a spot where they had left piles of supplies that would have saved their lives In his last journal entry Scott penned We shall stick it out to the end but we are getting weaker of course and the end cannot be far It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more Ironically only 16 years later Amundsen lost his life in a plane crash in the Arctic These explorers faced frostbite cruel whipping winds dan ger and even death to learn about these forbidding regions But with this vol ume you can learn all about the polar biomes without the trouble of putting on snowshoes or even a warm jacket The first biome you will learn about is the North Pole a biome is a major ecological community
INTRODUCTION 1p a Ecotourists maneuver between icebergs on a boat in Erera Channel Antarctica Keenpress National Geographic Image Collection Getty Images
INVESTIGATING EARTH's PoLAR BIOMES type such as a forest grassland or des ert The Arctic can be defined as the area within the Arctic Circle which extends 1 650 miles 2 660 kilometers from the geo graphic North Pole Or it can be defined asthenorthern areainwhichthe meantemper ature for the warmest month is less than 50 °F 10 °C The pole itself is covered with ice under that ice is not land but the Arctic Ocean though the amount and thickness of the ice varies from season to season But there are land areas that are con sidered part of the Arctic region as well from Alaska and Canada to Russia and Scandinavia These regions have special kinds of cold weather ecosystems such as boreal northern forests and large regions of permafrost or permanently frozen ground They are also home to a number of native peoples who have been explorers of the region in their own right from the Inuit peo ple who have traditionally hunted and fished in Greenland Canada northern Alaska and Russia to the Sami people who continue to herd reindeer in frigid parts of Scandinavia Unlike the Arctic the other polar biome you will explore is a continent But only two percent of Antarctica s land can be seen by the naked eye The rest is covered by a
INTRODUCTION thick ice sheet which at one point is almost 3 miles 5 kilometers deep It contains 90 percent of the world's ice and 70 percent of the world's fresh water Because it is on land not water Antarctica is even colder than the Arctic region The world's record low tem perature of 28 6 °F 89 2 °C was recorded there The coast can be extremely windy with gusts of nearly 200 miles 320 kilome ters per hour Antarctica s interior is one of the world's major cold deserts Precipitation averages only 1 to 2 inches 2 5 to 5 centime ters a year Little survives in Antarctica s interior except for a few tiny creatures such as mites But the ocean that surrounds it is teeming with life including krill which feed whales seals and penguins Antarctic cod have blood that lets them live in seawater as cold as 28 °F 2 °C People still have the desire to conquer and understand new frontiers Every summer about 25 nations send approximately four thousand scientists to Antarctica to conduct research including studying the continent's weather climate and mineral resources As you read this volume you too will come to understand why people are still fascinated by these icy
