The North and South Pole are two of the coldest places on
Earth. At the North and South Poles the Suns heat is distributed over a larger
land surface than near the equator where the Suns heat shines directly onto the
Earth.
For the Suns heat to reach the Poles it must first travel through the Earth’s atmosphere at an angle. This makes it take longer for the Sun’s rays to reach Earth then at the equator. As the heat passes through the atmosphere, some heat is absorbed. By the time this heat reaches Earth it is much cooler.
Another reason why the poles are so cold is because snow is white. Any sun light that shines on it gets reflected. This makes the North and South Poles even colder because the ground can't absorb any heat. In the Antarctic ice covers around 99.6% of the continent. This is one of the reasons why it is the coldest place on Earth. The lowest temperature ever recorded in the Antarctic was -89 degrees Celsius. The coldest temputure ever recored int he Arctic was −68 degrees Celsius
Because of the cold, rainfall in the poles is very little. Here it rains even less than it does in the Sahara Desert. This is why the North and South Poles are deserts even though they aren't hot.
The Artic and the Antarctic Ocean freezes at about -2 degrees Celsius.
In Autumn water freezes into ice sheets also known as pancake ice because when they bump into each other any corners are chipped off, making them round.
In Winter the ocean freezes increasing the size of the poles. Ice can get to over 2 metres thick and in some places the ice is so thick that you could put an airplane on it and it would not crack.
In Spring the ice begins to melt and shallow pools of melted water appear. During storms the ice gets broken in to small jagged pieces.
During Summer the poles decrease in size as the oceans heat up slightly. This causes pieces of stray ice to drift away from the main land and out to sea.
This is the size of the Arctic during Summer This is the size of the Arctic during Winter
This is the size of the Antarctic during Winter This is the size of the Antarctic during Summer