The holiday season is upon us. Many children who celebrate Christmas are excitedly preparing a list for the most famous "alleged resident" of the North Pole, Santa Claus. In reality, the North Pole is a very difficult place for humans to live. Here are 4 reasons why.
There is quite the debate about who reached the North Pole first, but there is no consensus according to Tara Ocean Foundation. Their website noted, "American explorer Richard E. Byrd led several Arctic expeditions, most notably in 1926, when he claimed to have flowed to the North Pole. This claim has been questioned." The website went on to say, "Roald Amundsen is considered to be the first explorer to fly over the North Pole in 1926 aboard an airship, accompanied by the Italian explorer Umberto Nobile. Amundsen was already the first man to reach the South Pole in December 1911."
In the late 1800s, Fridtjof Nansen got extremely close to the North Pole. He "froze" his specially-built ship into the Arctic ice in an attempt to drift across the polar region. While it did not get to the North Pole (90°'N), it did reach 86°14'N). Nansen is considered a pioneering polar explorer because of his expeditions. Matthew Henson was an African American explorer whom I learned about as a child. He was a part of the expedition team led by Robert E. Peary's. In 1909, they claimed to reach the North Pole and are often credited with being the first to do so. However, there is a long-running debate about whether that team or one led by Frederick Cook was "first."
That debate is beyond the scope of this article, my point is simple. It's a very remote place, which makes accessibility for human supply chain very difficult. A flying sleigh would certainly be desirable. Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway is about 800 miles from the North Pole, which makes it the closest permanent civilian hub to the North Pole. There is a research and military station at Alert, Nunavut Canada. At 508 miles from the North Pole, it is considered the closest permanent outpost with humans.
It takes special equipment like icebreaker ships, aircraft, or challenging ski expeditions to reach the geographic North Pole. What's the geographic North Pole? It's simply the Earth's rotational axis. There is also a magnetic North Pole, which is what compasses point to. It shifts around periodically. Less familiar to people is something called the Arctic Pole of Inaccessibility.
According to the University of California-Santa Barbara website, "The northern pole of inaccessibility (84°03'N 174°51'W), sometimes known as the Arctic pole of inaccessibility, or just Arctic pole, is located on the Arctic Ocean pack ice at a distance farthest from any landmass." This is the point considered to be most inaccessible due to difficulty traversing geographical features and overall remoteness. The UCSB website continued, "It is 661 km (411 statute miles) from the North Pole, 1,453 km (903 mi) north of Barrow, Alaska, and equidistant from the three closest landmasses, Ellesmere Island, Franz-Josef Land, and the New Siberian Islands, 1,094 km (680 mi) away." There is also a Southern or Antarctic Pole of Inaccessibility too, but it has varied.
There's actually no land at the North Pole. Believe it or not, it's really just ice floating on the Arctic Ocean. It doesn't have a fixed location. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "Over the past four decades, scientists have seen a steep decline in both the amount and thickness of Arctic sea ice during the summer and winter months."
NOAA, NASA and other research institutions use various types of observations, including satellites to monitor changes at both poles. From a "presence of land" perspective, the South Pole would be more ideal than the North Pole for a jolly fellow who happens to "own reindeer and fly sleigh." All fun aside, the South Pole actually sits on the continent of Antarctica, which itself is covered in ce up to 3 or so miles thick, but there is actually land beneath it.
While there are periodic expeditions to the North Pole, the brutally-cold conditions make it basically inhabitable. Though the South Pole is colder on average, the North Pole is pretty darn cold too. Both places receive very little sunlight in a given year because they are poles on a oblate-spheroid shaped planet. According to NASA, the average summer temperature at the North Pole is 32° F compared to -18° F at the South Pole. The average numbers plunge to -40° F at the North Pole in the winter and -76° F at the South Pole. (-60° C). NASA's website explained, "At both poles, the Sun is always low on the horizon. This helps keep the poles cold even in the summer when the Sun is up all day. In winter, the Sun is so far below the horizon that it doesn't come up for months at a time. So the days are just like the nights -- cold and dark."
The South Pole is much colder because it is a large ice-covered landmass. The North Pole has a lot of sea ice, but it is also moderated by relatively warm and changing water conditions. Remember, the North Pole has no landmass beneath it. Of concern, the northern polar region is warming faster than other parts of the Earth, which is reducing sea ice coverage. Less sea ice means less reflection of sunlight and more absorption of heat by the way. That leads to a feedback and more warming.
I mentioned how difficult it is to reach the North Pole. For humans to live, there would need to be periodic supply missions. Additionally, the ocean water and melting sea ice is salty, so freshwater supply is limited. There is not much in the way of local food supply. Virtually no plants grow there, and hunting can be treacherous for a variety of reasons. Changing sea ice patterns are even disrupting hunting and food supply for polar bears, which have adapted to the region.
A less-obvious reason the North Pole is a difficult place to live connects back to the lack of foundational land. With a constantly shifting surface, infrastructure such as homes, buildings, and pipelines would face a looming, sustained risk of damage, failure, or drift.
By the way, since we live in an era in which some people think the Earth is flat or that weather "machines" exist, I will end with a reminder that there is not a large candy cane "pole" erected at the top of the planet. Happy Holidays.