| / English Dictionary |
ANTARCTIC
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters
Synonyms:
Antarctic; Antarctic Zone; South Frigid Zone
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Instance hypernyms:
Frigid Zone; polar region; polar zone (the part of the Earth's surface forming a cap over a pole; characterized by frigid climate)
Meronyms (parts of "Antarctic"):
Antarctic continent; Antarctica (an extremely cold continent at the south pole almost entirely below the Antarctic Circle; covered by an ice cap up to 13,000 feet deep)
Antarctic Ocean (the southern waters surrounding Antarctica)
Derivation:
Antarctic (at or near the south pole)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
At or near the south pole
Synonyms:
Antarctic; south-polar
Classified under:
Similar:
polar (of or existing at or near a geographical pole or within the Arctic or Antarctic Circles)
Derivation:
Antarctic (the region around the south pole: Antarctica and surrounding waters)
Context examples:
Dangers to ancient Antarctic ice portend a future of rapidly rising seas, but a new study may relieve one nagging fear.
(Reframing the dangers Antarctica's meltwater ponds pose to ice shelves and sea level, National Science Foundation)
The findings suggest that significant transformations of Antarctic ecosystems are underway now and will continue to be affected by future climate events.
(Extreme melt season leads to decade-long ecosystem changes in Antarctica's Dry Valleys, National Science Foundation)
Seals, whales and penguins all feast on shrimplike crustaceans called Antarctic krill.
(Whaling and climate change lead to 100 years of feast or famine for Antarctic penguins, National Science Foundation)
More than 90 percent of our planet’s freshwater ice is bound in the massive ice sheets and glaciers of the Antarctic and Greenland.
(The Hidden Meltdown of Greenland, NASA)
This was the third largest June Antarctic sea ice extent on record and 140,000 square miles smaller than the record-large June extent of 2014.
(June 2015 was warmest June on record for the globe, NOAA)
In contrast, Antarctic temperatures have remained relatively stable over the past two decades, although year-to-year and decade-to-decade variation in temperatures have increased.
(Warming at the poles will have global consequences, National Science Foundation)
Located on the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, the Larsen B remnant is about 625 square miles (1,600 square kilometers) in area and about 1,640 feet (500 meters) thick at its thickest point.
(Antarctica’s Larsen B Ice Shelf Nearing Its Final Act, NASA)
We moved off in silence, and continued to coast round the line of cliffs, which were as even and unbroken as some of those monstrous Antarctic ice-fields which I have seen depicted as stretching from horizon to horizon and towering high above the mast-heads of the exploring vessel.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
A recently published study that ranked 37 years of monthly sea ice extents in the Arctic and Antarctic found that there has not been a record high in Arctic sea ice extents in any month since 1986.
(Arctic Sea Ice Annual Minimum Ties Second Lowest on Record, NASA)
But new research, led by The University of Texas at Austin and the University of South Florida (USF), found that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet may not be as stable as it seems.
(Massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet has history of instability, National Science Foundatio)
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