Vostok - 78.45°S - Continental High Plateau
- Russian base at
the Southern Geomagnetic Pole. It is close to the Pole of
Inaccessibility, the point on the Antarctic continent that is the
furthest from any other and so the most difficult or inaccessible place
to get to. Consistently the coldest place on earth. Holder of the record for
the lowest temperature ever recorded on the planet
-89.2°C (-128.6°F) on
July 21st 1983.
Amundsen-Scott
- 90°S -
Continental High Plateau -
American base at the South Pole, named after Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon
Scott, the leaders of the first expeditions to reach the South Pole.
McMurdo
- 78.88°S
- Continental High Latitude
Coast - American base on the edge
of the Ross sea, far and away the largest base in Antarctica, more of a
small town.
Rothera point
- 67.56°S
- Antarctic Peninsula
- British base about
half-way down the Antarctic Peninsula, most Northerly of the Antarctic bases
represented here.
London -
55.55°N
- Example of a Northern Hemisphere city, further North than New York so
temperatures don't get so high. The warming effects of the Gulf Stream ensure
that temperatures don't fall very low.
New York
- 40.7°N
- Northern Hemisphere city with a coastal climate.
Sydney -
33.7°S - Southern Hemisphere city with
a coastal climate
Note how the seasonal changes in the shape of the graphs
are the opposite way round for London and New York to the other places as
these are in the Northern Hemisphere, whereas the others are in the southern
hemisphere and so the seasons are reversed
The graph above and data below are the average monthly
temperatures. These are good for comparison purposes but a bit misleading
when imagining what the climate in a location is like. They even out the
diurnal (daily) changes in temperature from day to night. It is nearly always
warmer in daylight than at night time.
For example, even though the average London temperature
for August is 16°C, the average maximum is 21°C and average minimum is 12°C,
a few days before writing this page (10th Aug 2003) a temperature of 37.6°C
was reached in London.
Likewise the average July temperature for Vostok is -66.9°C,
but the lowest recorded was -89.2°C.
The data given here is simplified for the sake of
clarity. It's very easy when quoting weather statistics to get rapidly
overwhelmed with numbers.
Data for above graphs, mean monthly temperature
in degrees Centigrade
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