Polar climate - wikipedia Polar climate Areas of polar climate according to the Köppen classification : tundra ( strong turquoise ) and ice cap ( light turquoise ). Solar radiation has a lower intensity in polar regions because the angle at which it hits the earth is not as direct as at the equator. Another effect is that sunlight has to go through more atmosphere to reach the ground. The polar climate regions are characterized by a lack of warm summers. Every month in a polar climate has an average temperature of less than 10 ° C ( 50 ° F ). Regions with polar climate cover more than 20 % of the Earth. Most of these regions are far from the equator, and in this case, summer days are extremely long and winter days are extremely short ( or lasting for the entirety of each season or longer ). A polar climate consists of cool summers and very cold winters, which results in treeless tundra, glaciers, or a permanent or semi-permanent layer of ice. Contents 1 Subtypes 2 Locations 2.1 Arctic 2.2 Antarctica 3 Quantifying polar climate 4 See also 5 References 6 External links Subtypes Main articles : Ice cap climate and Tundra climate There are two types of polar climate : ET, or tundra climate ; and EF, or ice cap climate. A tundra climate is characterized by having at least one month whose average temperature is above 0 ° C ( 32 ° F ), while an ice cap climate has no months above 0 ° C ( 32 ° F ). In a tundra climate, trees can not grow, but other specialized plants can grow. In an ice cap climate, no plants can grow, and ice gradually accumulates until it flows elsewhere. Many high altitude locations on Earth have a climate where no month has an average temperature of 10 ° C ( 50 ° F ) or higher, but as this is due to elevation, this climate is referred to as Alpine climate. Alpine climate can mimic either tundra or ice cap climate. Locations A polar bear with cub On Earth, the only continent where the ice cap polar climate is predominant is Antarctica. All but a few isolated coastal areas on the island of Greenland also have the ice cap climate. Coastal regions of Greenland that do not have permanent ice sheets have the less extreme tundra climates. The northernmost part of the Eurasian land mass, from the extreme northeastern coast of Scandinavia and eastwards to the Bering Strait, large areas of northern Siberia and northern Iceland have tundra climate as well. Large areas in northern Canada and northern Alaska have tundra climate, changing to ice cap climate in the most northern parts of Canada. Southernmost South America ( Tierra del Fuego where it abuts the Drake Passage ) and such subantarctic islands such as the South Shetland Islands and the Falkland Islands have tundra climates of slight thermal range in which no month is as warm as 10 ° C ( 50 ° F ). These subantarctic lowlands are found closer to the equator than the coastal tundras of the Arctic basin. Arctic Main article : Climate of the Arctic A map of the Arctic. The red line indicates the 10 ° C isotherm in July and the white area shows the average minimum extent of sea ice in summer as of 1975. Some parts of the Arctic are covered by ice ( sea ice, glacial ice, or snow ) year - round, and nearly all parts of the Arctic experience long periods with some form of ice on the surface. Average January temperatures range from about − 40 to 0 ° C ( − 40 to 32 ° F ), and winter temperatures can drop below − 50 ° C ( − 58 ° F ) over large parts of the Arctic. Average July temperatures range from about − 10 to 10 ° C ( 14 to 50 ° F ), with some land areas occasionally exceeding 30 ° C ( 86 ° F ) in summer. The Arctic consists of ocean that is nearly surrounded by land. As such, the climate of much of the Arctic is moderated by the ocean water, which can never have a temperature below − 2 ° C ( 28 ° F ). In winter, this relatively warm water, even though covered by the polar ice pack, keeps the North Pole from being the coldest place in the Northern Hemisphere, and it is also part of the reason that Antarctica is so much colder than the Arctic. In summer, the presence of the nearby water keeps coastal areas from warming as much as they might otherwise, just as it does in temperate regions with maritime climates. Antarctica Main article : Climate of Antarctica The climate of Antarctica is the coldest on the whole of Earth. Antarctica has the lowest naturally occurring temperature ever recorded : − 89.2 ° C ( − 128.6 ° F ) at Vostok Station. It is also extremely dry ( technically a desert ), averaging 166 millimetres ( 6.5 in ) of precipitation per year. Even so, on most parts of the continent the snow rarely melts and is eventually compressed to become the glacial ice that makes up the ice sheet. Weather fronts rarely penetrate far into the continent. Quantifying polar climate There have been several attempts at quantifying what constitutes a polar climate. Climatologist Wladimir Köppen demonstrated a relationship between the Arctic and Antarctic tree lines and the 10 ° C ( 50 ° F ) summer isotherm ; i.e., places where the average temperature in the warmest calendar month of the year is below 10 ° C ( 50 ° F ) can not support forests. See Köppen climate classification for more information. Otto Nordenskjöld theorized that winter conditions also play a role : His formula is W = 9 − 0.1 C, where W is the average temperature in the warmest month and C the average of the coldest month, both in degrees Celsius. For example, if a particular location had an average temperature of − 20 ° C ( − 4 ° F ) in its coldest month, the warmest month would need to average 11 ° C ( 52 ° F ) or higher for trees to be able to survive there as 9 − 0.1 ( − 20 ) = 11. Nordenskiöld 's line tends to run to the north of Köppen 's near the west coasts of the Northern Hemisphere continents, south of it in the interior sections, and at about the same latitude along the east coasts of both Asia and North America. In the Southern Hemisphere, all of Tierra del Fuego lies outside the polar region in Nordenskiöld 's system, but part of the island ( including Ushuaia, Argentina ) is reckoned as being within the Antarctic under Köppen 's. In 1947, Holdridge improved on these schemes, by defining biotemperature : the mean annual temperature, where all temperatures below 0 ° C or 32 ° F ( and above 30 ° C or 86 ° F ) are treated as 0 ° C ( because it makes no difference to plant life, being dormant ). If the mean biotemperature is between 1.5 and 3 ° C ( 34.7 and 37.4 ° F ), Holdridge quantifies the climate as subpolar ( or alpine, if the low temperature is caused by altitude ). See also Arctic oscillation Köppen climate classification References Jump up ^ Yung, Chung - hoi. `` Why is the equator very hot and the poles very cold ? ''. Hong Kong Observatory. Retrieved 2010 - 12 - 02. Jump up ^ McKnight, Tom L ; Hess, Darrel ( 2000 ). `` Climate Zones and Types : The Köppen System ''. Physical Geography : A Landscape Appreciation. Upper Saddle River, NJ : Prentice Hall. pp. 235 -- 7. ISBN 0 - 13 - 020263 - 0. Jump up ^ This article incorporates public domain material from the CIA World Factbook website https://web.archive.org/web/20070613024704/https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/reference_maps/pdf/arctic.pdf. Jump up ^ Gavin Hudson ( 2008 - 12 - 14 ). `` The Coldest Inhabited Places on Earth ''. Eco Worldly. Archived from the original on 2008 - 12 - 18. Retrieved 2009 - 02 - 08. Jump up ^ Jones, Allan. `` Biodiversity lectures and practicals ''. University of Dundee. Archived from the original on 2007 - 09 - 29. External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Polar climate. NOAA State of the Arctic Report 2006 Climate types under the Köppen climate classification Class A Tropical rainforest ( Af ) Tropical monsoon ( Am ) Tropical savanna ( Aw, As ) Class B Desert ( BWh, BWk, BWn ) Semi-arid ( BSh, BSk, BSn ) Class C Humid subtropical ( Cfa, Cwa ) Oceanic ( Cfb, Cwb, Cfc, Cwc ) Mediterranean ( Csa, Csb, Csc ) Class D Humid continental ( Dfa, Dwa, Dfb, Dwb, Dsa, Dsb ) Subarctic ( Dfc, Dwc, Dfd, Dwd, Dsc, Dsd ) Class E Tundra ( ET ) Ice cap ( EF ) Alpine ( ET, EF ) Arctic topics History Arctic research Exploration of the Arctic History of whaling Government Arctic Council Arctic cooperation and politics Arctic Ocean Conference Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route Ilulissat Declaration Inuit Circumpolar Council Saami Council Territorial claims in the Arctic United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Geography Arctic Circle Arctic ecology Arctic Ocean Arctic Cyclone Arctic geography terminology Greenland ice sheet Impact craters of the Arctic Nordicity North Pole Populated places in the Arctic Tundra Regions Arctic Alaska British Arctic Territories Canadian Arctic Archipelago Finnmark Greenland Northern Canada Northwest Territories Nunavik Nunavut Russian Arctic Sakha Sápmi Yukon North American Arctic Climate Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Arctic dipole anomaly Arctic oscillation Arctic sea ice decline ecology and history Climate change in the Arctic Climate of Alaska Effects of global warming on marine mammals Polar climate Polar amplification Polar vortex Fauna Arctic fox Beluga whale Bowhead whale Lemming Muskox Narwhal Polar bear Reindeer Seal bearded harp hooded ribbon ringed Snowy owl Walrus Flora Arctic ecology Arctic vegetation Tundra Culture Arctic peoples Subarctic peoples Chukchi Chukotka Evenks Inuit Gwich'in Khanty Koryaks Nenets Northern indigenous Russian peoples Sami Selkup Yakuts Yukaghir Arctic Winter Games Tsagaan Sar ( New Year 's Day ) Economy Natural resources Petroleum exploration Arctic Refuge drilling controversy Protected areas Transportation Transport Arctic Bridge Arctic shipping routes Northeast Passage Northwest Passage Northern Sea Route Polar air route Transpolar Sea Route Search and rescue Portal WikiProject Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Polar_climate&oldid=853876417 '' Categories : Climate Köppen climate classifications Polar regions of the Earth Hidden categories : Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the World Factbook Wikipedia articles needing clarification from March 2018 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Azərbaycanca Беларуская Български Català Čeština Dansk Deutsch Eesti Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Euskara فارسی Français Frysk Galego 한국어 Հայերեն Hrvatski Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית Қазақша Кыргызча Lietuvių Magyar Bahasa Melayu Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk Norsk nynorsk Polski Português Română Русский Scots Simple English Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Svenska தமிழ் Türkçe Українська Tiếng Việt 粵語 中文 39 more Edit links This page was last edited on 7 August 2018, at 14 : 33 ( UTC ). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: which type of climate is characteristic of antarctica
Answer: the ice cap polar climate