5 Misconceptions About Antarctica, Debunked

Antarctica—not to be confused with the Arctic—has long enchanted both adventurers and armchair explorers alike. But that hasn’t stopped various myths about the great white continent from circulating.

We take a look at a handful misconceptions about Antarctica, from its alleged populations of bears to its current ownership, as adapted from the above episode of Misconceptions on YouTube. Let’s get started.

1. Misconception: Antarctica balances the Earth. 
2. Misconception: Polar bears live in Antarctica.
3. Misconception: Because there are no polar bears in Antarctica, penguins lost the ability to fly.
4. Misconception: It snows a lot.
5. Misconception: Various countries own Antarctica.

Misconception: Antarctica balances the Earth. 

Back in the 4th century BCE, Aristotle suggested that Earth had to be balanced: the landmass in the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic to the tropics, must be counterweighted by a similar landmass, as yet undiscovered, in the southern hemisphere. Mapmakers in the following centuries drew this hypothetical land extending from the south pole all the way to the equator. The concept stuck for more than a millennia. It wasn’t until the 18th century, as explorers started really looking for it in earnest, that people realized there was no such supercontinent—and not until the 19th century was Antarctica’s existence confirmed.

Misconception: Polar bears live in Antarctica.

Wild polar bears live only in the Northern Hemisphere. In fact, the species has never gotten anywhere near Antarctica. 

Polar bears broke off from brown bears a long time ago—anywhere from 350,000 to five million years ago—and began to adapt to colder habitats. They developed translucent fur to camouflage themselves against ice (and probably help keep them warm, though the exact mechanism is still up in the air), and adapted to a heavily marine-mammal based diet, eventually turning into polar bears. Since their emergence, polar bears have continued to occupy their niche in the northernmost latitudes, while brown bears remain the dominant species in temperate regions to the south. 

But could polar bears live in Antarctica? According to Polar Bear International, the animals might be able to survive for a while, but moving them there would create enormous problems. The bears could introduce diseases to Antarctica’s wildlife or vice versa, and the continent’s penguins would be no match for the big predators. It’s possible that the bears would face the same diminishing sea ice as they have in the Arctic, which impedes their ability to hunt seals. And it would probably be illegal under U.S. and international laws.

You May Also Like ...

• Speech Bubble: How Scientists Working in Antarctica Inadvertently Developed a New Accent
• Sea Pigs, Sea Spiders, and More Bizarre Creatures Collected Off Antarctica
• What Antarctica Looks Like Under All That Ice

Add Mental Floss as a preferred news source!

Misconception: Because there are no polar bears in Antarctica, penguins lost the ability to fly.

Most birds escape from predators by flying away. It would seem to make sense that, because there are no big land-based predators in Antarctica, penguins didn’t need to fly to avoid becoming dinner and eventually lost that ability altogether.

That may not be the case, though. A 2013 study showed that penguins’ physical modifications for swimming underwater are the main factors in their inability to fly.

Penguins are superbly adapted for life in one of Earth’s least habitable places. They evolved strong pectoral muscles and stiff, flipper-like wings that allow them to zip through the sea. These anatomical features help them to chase after sea animals and evade predators like leopard seals and orcas. Their heavier bones are less buoyant than those of other seabirds and allow them to dive to the seabed for shellfish. Penguins also have thick layers of blubber that protect them from freezing temperatures on land and in the ocean, but make them too heavy for liftoff. 

Strangely enough, penguins’ lack of flight wasn’t prompted by a lack of predators, but by adaptations to make the penguins themselves better predators.

Misconception: It snows a lot.

Antarctica is covered in ice and snow, but you may be surprised to learn it’s classified as a polar desert. It’s actually the driest continent on Earth. 

Overall, Antarctica gets about 150 millimeters of liquid precipitation in the forms of rain, snow, and ice crystals per year. The coasts are warmer and wetter, with over 200 millimeters of precipitation a year, compared to the elevated plateau in the center of the continent, which annually can receive less than 50 millimeters, or 2 inches. That’s about the same as Death Valley in California and the driest parts of the Australian Outback, but it’s less than the 4 inches that fall in the Arabian Desert. So how is Antarctica so icy? 

The snow that does fall rarely melts completely. Over millennia, snow on the ground compacts under the weight of newer snow. The pressure squeezes out air trapped in the snow layers, transforming them into super-dense, blue-toned ice. About 98 percent of Antarctica is blanketed by a colossal sheet of this ice. But, because so little snow falls and global temperatures are warming, the Antarctic ice sheet’s mass is decreasing. According to NASA, Antarctica lost about 150 billion metric tons of ice each year over the past two decades. 

Misconception: Various countries own Antarctica.

The short explanation? No countries actually own Antarctica. But the longer explanation is a lot more complicated.

Let’s go back to the first discoveries of Antarctica. Some scholars suggest that Māori oral histories describe Polynesian sailors encountering “a foggy, misty, and dark place not seen by the sun,” interpreted as Antarctica, several centuries before European explorers even got close. However, a number of Māori and other historians dispute the theory that Polynesian voyagers reached the icy realm.

Of the European navigators, Captain James Cook on the HMS Resolution was the first to cross the Antarctic Circle in 1773, but pack ice prevented him from sighting the continent. Nearly 50 years later, explorers started to poke around the area, and there are a few candidates for the first to see Antarctica around 1820. The first people to set foot on Antarctica, as early as 1821, were probably American seal hunters.

Those visitors laid the foundation for the “Heroic age” of Antarctic exploration, a period beginning with a Belgian expedition in 1898, followed by visitors from Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Norway, and Australia through the early 1920s. Each of these nations managed to chart more of the coast, map the interior, and conduct scientific experiments while staying mostly alive and well. Some also stuck a flag into the ice and claimed the land for their country.

By the 1950s, seven nations held territorial claims over the parts of Antarctica it had explored. These countries were Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the UK. Another five countries, including the U.S. and the Soviet Union, had explored the continent but made no claim to any territory. Some of these claimed lands overlapped, and as you might expect, things got heated when one overstepped the boundaries of another.

Then, from 1957 to 1958, all 12 of these countries participated in a global scientific initiative called the International Geophysical Year. As part of the proceedings, they agreed to refrain from interfering in each other’s scientific activities in Antarctica so research could continue without any political interruptions.

It worked out so well that negotiations to make the agreement official took place in 1959 in Washington, D.C. The 12 nations put their agreements into writing in the Antarctic Treaty, which declared that current and future scientific research should be conducted in peace. The treaty prohibited all military activities, including nuclear detonations and nuclear waste disposal, on the continent, and stated that no country can make a claim of territorial sovereignty while the treaty is in force. 

It also didn’t negate the claims made prior to the treaty. Those are still technically in existence but cannot be enforced, and most countries, including the U.S., don’t officially recognize them.

To date, 58 countries have signed onto the Antarctic Treaty, one of the most successful and productive international agreements ever made. A few additional treaties have been enacted to protect Antarctica's environment and wildlife, and several nations operate scientific research bases there. But none owns the land underneath them.