What Is the Polar Climate?
Polar climates are found at the high latitudes surrounding the North and South Poles — generally above 66.5°N (Arctic Circle) and below 66.5°S (Antarctic Circle). Countries and regions with polar climates include Greenland, northern Canada, northern Scandinavia, Alaska, and Antarctica.
Key characteristics:
- Extremely cold temperatures: Average monthly temperatures rarely rise above 10°C and often fall below −30°C or lower.
- Low precipitation: Despite the vast ice sheets, polar regions receive very little precipitation (often less than 250 mm per year) — making them technically cold deserts.
- Long, harsh winters: With months of little or no sunlight.
- Midnight sun/polar night: Six months of continuous daylight in summer, six months of darkness in winter.
Why Is It So Cold?
Polar regions are so cold because:
- Low sun angle: Sunlight strikes the Earth at a very low angle near the poles, spreading the energy over a much larger area and making it less intense.
- Long nights: In winter, the poles are tilted away from the Sun — they receive no sunlight at all for months.
- High albedo: Snow and ice reflect 80–90% of incoming sunlight back into space (compared to forests or oceans which absorb it), preventing warming.
The lowest natural temperature ever recorded on Earth was −89.2°C at the Soviet Vostok Station in Antarctica on 21 July 1983. Antarctica is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent — it holds about 70% of Earth's fresh water frozen in its ice sheet, which averages 2.3 km thick.
Types of Polar Climate
Ice cap climate (EF): Temperatures always below 0°C. No vegetation grows. Found at the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
Tundra climate (ET): The warmest month averages between 0°C and 10°C. A brief summer thaws the surface, allowing hardy plants to grow. Found in northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia, and Scandinavia.
Tundra — A Fragile Ecosystem
The tundra is a treeless landscape with:
- Permafrost: Permanently frozen ground beneath the surface (up to several hundred metres deep).
- Low-growing plants: Mosses, lichens, grasses, dwarf shrubs.
- Wildlife: Arctic fox, polar bears (on sea ice), caribou/reindeer, migratory birds.
Permafrost stores enormous amounts of ancient organic material (dead plants and animals) that has been frozen for thousands of years. As the climate warms and permafrost thaws, this organic matter decomposes and releases carbon dioxide and methane — powerful greenhouse gases. This creates a feedback loop that could accelerate climate change significantly.
Climate Change and the Poles
Polar regions are warming at twice the global average rate — a phenomenon called polar amplification. Arctic sea ice is shrinking, threatening polar bears and indigenous communities. Melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are contributing to rising sea levels worldwide.
Real world: Melting Arctic sea ice and the polar bear crisis
Arctic sea ice extent has declined by roughly 13% per decade since satellite records began in 1979. Polar bears rely on sea ice as a platform for hunting seals. As summers lengthen and ice shrinks, bears are forced onto land earlier, with less fat reserves. The Hudson Bay population has declined by about 30% since the 1980s. Indigenous Inuit communities in Canada and Greenland are also seeing their traditional ways of life disrupted — dog sled travel, ice fishing, and hunting are all becoming more dangerous as the ice becomes unpredictable.
Real world: Permafrost thaw and infrastructure collapse in Siberia
In Siberia and northern Canada, entire towns were built on permafrost — ground frozen solid year-round. As the permafrost thaws due to climate warming, buildings, roads, and pipelines are sinking and cracking. The Russian city of Yakutsk (one of the coldest cities on Earth) is seeing widespread foundation damage as permafrost softens. Siberia's thawing permafrost is also releasing methane — a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than CO₂ over 20 years — creating sinkholes and "exploding craters" in the landscape.
Real world: Antarctica's ice sheets and global sea level
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by over 3 metres if it fully melted. Recent studies have confirmed that ice loss from Antarctica has tripled since 2012. The Thwaites Glacier — nicknamed the "Doomsday Glacier" — is retreating at an accelerating rate. If Thwaites collapses, it could trigger the destabilisation of the broader West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Coastal cities including London, Amsterdam, New York, and Shanghai would face severe flooding.
Where do you see this in real life? Check the news for Arctic sea ice extent reports each September (the annual minimum). Year-on-year comparisons reveal how dramatically polar regions are changing — and because polar ice influences ocean currents and global weather patterns, what happens at the poles affects weather in your country too.
Practice Problems
Why do polar regions receive less intense sunlight than equatorial regions, even during their summer?
Show answer
Why is Antarctica considered a desert despite being covered in ice?