Find out about the weather in The Arctic!

Both the Arctic (North Pole) and the Antarctic (South Pole) are cold because they do not get any direct sunlight. The sun is always low on the horizon, even in the middle of summer. In winter, the sun is so far below the horizon that it doesn’t come up at all for months at a time. So the days are just like the night, cold and dark. There is even one whole day in winter that is in complete darkness!

Even though the North Pole and South Pole are polar opposites, they both get the same amount of sunlight. But the South Pole is a lot colder than the North Pole. 

The average Arctic winter temperature is -34°C, while the average Arctic summer temperature is 3-12° C.

The Arctic is ocean surrounded by land. The Antarctic is land surrounded by ocean. The ocean under the Arctic ice is cold, but still warmer than the ice! So the ocean warms the air a bit.

The Arctic ice is shrinking because the ocean under the ice is warming. The warming ocean means Earth’s climate is getting warmer.

When summer arrives, plants grow quickly and animals, such as moose, birds and fish, arrive to feed on the plants. Summer doesn’t get very warm and it doesn’t last long, so animals make the most of the time they have.