Some Interesting South Pole Facts

South Pole Station receives all supplies by aircraft, which can only fly into the station four months out of the year.

South Pole Station operates year-round. A small crew maintains the station and runs scientific experiments during the eight winter months of total isolation.

We have six months of sunlight, three months of twilight, and three months of total darkness.

The sun rises near the date of the vernal equinox and sets near the date of the autumnal equinox.

The sun slowly rises throughout the summer, until it reaches a maximum altitude above the horizon of 23.5°.

The temperature this year reached a low of -105.5° Fahrenheit (-76.39° Celsius), and a high to date of -9° Fahrenheit (-22.8° Celsius).

We live in a desert. We get very little precipitation; during the winter, the air here contains less moisture than the air of the Sahara.

I have never seen a snowflake at the South Pole. It is too cold for flakes to form. Rather we have snow grains - small frozen water particles slightly larger than grains of sand.

We live on the polar ice cap, altitude 9,801 feet.

We live under a large aluminum geodesic dome.

The United States Geological Survey installs a brass marker at the South Pole each year. A new marker is needed each year because the station and the entire polar ice cap are moving over the pole about 10 meters per year north along longitude 36W.

We actually have a barber shop-style South Pole. We call this the ceremonial pole, and it is surrounded by the flags of the nations that signed the first Antarctic treaty. The ceremonial pole is close to, but not at, the actual South Pole. I don't know why we have this; I think it is for tourists.