NASA | How to Get Colder Than Anywhere Else

At the coldest spots on Earth, every breath is painful. But how cold can it get on Earth's surface? What sort of weather brings on the record-breaking cold?

On the high plateau of East Antarctica, there is a ridge along the ice sheet nearly 14,000 feet above sea level. The dry atmosphere and the long, sunless winter months combine to make this the coldest place on earth. Under the clear Antarctic night skies the snow surface radiates warmth into space, cooling the air just above the surface. As the air cools, it gets denser and starts to slide down the slope off of the ridge. It collects In small hollows just a little downhill and continues to be cooled as the snow in the hollow radiates away its small amount of warmth.

The MODIS sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite allowed researchers from the National Snow and Ice Data Center to find the coldest place on Earth. By turning to the TIRS sensor on the NASA/USGS Landsat 8 satellite, with its higher spatial resolution, the scientists were able to confirm how the topography facilitates these record low temperatures.

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[anthonybancheri]

i was just wondering if this is how cold it could get then if earth was in an ice age, could antarctica get any colder? if so then by how much?

[MaxThyme]

Hmmm, so a record high is a sign of "things to come", but a record low is "just weather or local variations" huh?

[jackarendt]

What are the elevations of these pockets and how far down the slope does the cold air have to go before the high altitude (thin air) conditions begin to be overwhelmed by atmospheric conditions at lover levels?  Is there a sweat spot?

[bobzone]

Um the captions look like they're from another video lol. They're totally wrong.

[ThePsalmon]

So we should call the 200 foot sea level rise from all the ice melting somewhat unlikely at those temperatures?

[discountconsulting]

So gravity and shade are needed to cool air.  Space isn't really cold for this reason or even a true vacuum.  The air is just dispersed because there's not enough gravity to contain it long enough for it to radiate away its heat.  Fascinating.

I wonder if plasma in outer space could be captured and cooled by shading and compressing it while somehow utilizing the radiation generated as energy.

[KustomFu]

is it my imagination, or does that kind of sound like Bill Nye?

[jiberish]

Dear Max Thyme,
Record *global* highs are cause for concern. Record *regional* lows do not invalidate those concerns. Especially when those record lows are only records because of nonexistent accurate records for those small regions.
Seriously, why is *global* warming so hard to understand for some people?
This isn't a prediction, people. The *global* temperatures HAVE risen significantly. Any low temperatures we find in small regions isn't going to magically change the past.