Environment
Dome C is one of the coldest places on Earth. Temperatures hardly rise above −25 °C (−13 °F) in summer and can fall below −80 °C (−112 °F) in winter. The annual average air temperature is −54.5 °C (−66.1 °F). Humidity is low and it is also very dry, with very little precipitation throughout the year.
Dome C does not experience the katabatic winds typical of the coastal regions of Antarctica because of its elevated location and its relative distance from the edges of the Antarctic Plateau. Typical wind speed in winter is 2.8 m/s (6 mph).
Dome C is situated on top of the Antarctic Plateau, the world's largest desert. No animals or plants live at a distance of more than a few tenths of a kilometre from the Southern Ocean. However, skuas have been spotted overflying the station, 1,200 kilometres (750 mi) away from their nearest food sources. It is believed that these birds have learned to cross the continent instead of circumnavigating it.
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Famous quotes containing the word environment:
“People between twenty and forty are not sympathetic. The child has the capacity to do but it can’t know. It only knows when it is no longer able to do—after forty. Between twenty and forty the will of the child to do gets stronger, more dangerous, but it has not begun to learn to know yet. Since his capacity to do is forced into channels of evil through environment and pressures, man is strong before he is moral. The world’s anguish is caused by people between twenty and forty.”
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“Modern man’s capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity’s capacity for reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction.”
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