Antarctic Plateau
Around 98% of continental Antarctica is covered in ice up to thick. Antarctica's icy deserts have extremely low temperatures, high solar radiation, and extreme dryness. Any precipitation that does fall usually falls as snow, and is restricted to a band around from the coast. Some areas receive as little as of precipitation annually. The coldest temperature recorded on Earth was at Vostok Station on the Antarctic Plateau. Organisms that survive in Antarctica are often extremophiles.