Any snow that blows into the edges of Antarctica’s Dry Valleys remains crystalline until it blows out again—because it never gets warm enough to melt.
Question: What’s the driest place on earth? (Hint: No camels there. Definitely no camels.)
Answer: Antarctica
When you picture Antarctica, it makes sense that you think of water; its ice does contain 70% of the fresh water on earth. But Antarctica is home to the Dry Valleys, which are not just dry, but driest—nowhere on earth receives less precipitation.
In the Dry Valleys, there is almost no humidity, and there is no moisture to accumulate, because it last rained a cool 2,000,000 years ago. A forceful weather pattern, the Katabatic winds, blows moisture down and away from the valleys, so that rain never reaches the parched land. As a result, there’s no snow and no ice here, only 1,850 square miles of hard, dust-covered tundra.
In fact, this region (like much of the continent) is scientifically classified as desert. But it’s not the kind of place you’d want to pitch a tent with your caravan. For one thing, you’d be disappointed at your choices of oases: Lake Bonney is a saline lake permanently covered with 12-foot thick sheet of ice that has been undisturbed for eons, its shores littered with mummified seal corpses; and Lake Vanda is three times as salty as ocean water, making it undrinkable. (See below.)
As Dry Valleys’ temperatures can drop to 98 below zero, the extreme cold just adds to the inhospitable nature of the place. Though the Valleys’ edges may get up to two inches of snow a year, the ground is so frozen that the moisture cannot melt and seep in. Instead, it simply piles up, forever crystalline, until blown away by winds as fierce as the land is dry.
8 Ways Antarctica is Like Nowhere Else on Earth
- The world’s coldest-ever temperature—minus 129.3 degrees—was recorded on land at the Vostok Russian research station.
- Funneled between mountains and across flat expanses of open ice, winds in Antarctica have been clocked at speeds of as high as 200 miles per hour.
- The term “ice sheet” hardly covers the magnitude of Antarctica’s coverage; at its thickest point, the ice is more than two miles deep.
- 400 bodies of water have been found hidden beneath the ice, including 155-mile Lake Vostok, a freshwater lake two miles down.
- Antarctica’s saltiest body of water, Deep Lake, is ten times the salinity of the ocean, which keeps the water from ever completely freezing, even in constant subzero temperatures.
- A newly discovered trench, six miles wide and 62 miles long, appears to be 1.5 times deeper than the Grand Canyon (which was previously considered the biggest natural rift on earth).
- More meteorites are found here than anywhere else on earth (roughly 500 per six-week meteorite-gathering expedition), their collection made easier because the dark material contrasts with the all-white landscapes.
- Despite conditions that humans find harsh, microbial life thrives; in 2014, scientists discovered microbes that sustain themselves on air alone, the first such organisms ever found.
Experience the unparalleled drama of the frozen continent on our Antarctica’s White Wilderness Small Ship Adventure.
