Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: How large is Antarctica by area?
The geography of Antarctica is dominated by its south polar location and, thus, by ice. The Antarctic continent, located in the Earth's southern hemisphere, is centered asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the Antarctic Circle. It is washed by the Southern (or Antarctic) Ocean or, depending on definition, the southern Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. It has an area of more than 14 million km².
Antarctica has few permanent residents, and contains research stations and field camps that are staffed seasonally or year-round, and former whaling settlements. The largest station, McMurdo Station, has a summer population of about 1,000 people and a winter population of about 200. Approximately 29 nations, all signatory to the Antarctic Treaty, send personnel to perform seasonal (summer) or year-round research on the continent and in its surrounding oceans.
There are many research stations in Antarctica, both permanent and summer only. Many of the stations are staffed all year. McMurdo Station is the largest with an average population of 1200.
The EAIS holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by 53.3 m and is considerably larger in area and mass than the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). It is separated from the WAIS by the Transantarctic Mountains. The EAIS is the driest, windiest, and coldest place on Earth, with temperatures reported down to nearly -100°C. The EAIS holds the thickest ice on Earth, at 15,700 ft (4,800 m). It is home to the geographic South Pole and the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.
Some of Antarctica has been warming up; particularly strong warming has been noted on the Antarctic Peninsula. A study by Eric Steig published in 2009 noted for the first time that the continent-wide average surface temperature trend of Antarctica is slightly positive at >0.05 °C (0.09 °F) per decade from 1957 to 2006. This study also noted that West Antarctica has warmed by more than 0.1 °C (0.2 °F) per decade in the last 50 years, and this warming is strongest in winter and spring. This is partly offset by autumn cooling in East Antarctica. There is evidence from one study that Antarctica is warming as a result of human carbon dioxide emissions, but this remains ambiguous. The amount of surface warming in West Antarctica, while large, has not led to appreciable melting at the surface, and is not directly affecting the West Antarctic Ice Sheet's contribution to sea level. Instead the recent increases in glacier outflow are believed to be due to an inflow of warm water from the deep ocean, just off the continental shelf. The net contribution to sea level from the Antarctic Peninsula is more likely to be a direct result of the much greater atmospheric warming there.
With a surface area of approximately , Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by area, the world's largest tropical lake, and the world's second largest fresh water lake by surface area after Lake Superior in North America. In terms of volume, Lake Victoria is the world's ninth largest continental lake, containing about of water.
Surrounded by the Indian and Pacific oceans, Australia is separated from Asia by the Arafura and Timor seas, with the Coral Sea lying off the Queensland coast, and the Tasman Sea lying between Australia and New Zealand. The world's smallest continent and sixth largest country by total area, Australia—owing to its size and isolation—is often dubbed the "island continent", and is sometimes considered the world's largest island. Australia has of coastline (excluding all offshore islands), and claims an extensive Exclusive Economic Zone of . This exclusive economic zone does not include the Australian Antarctic Territory. Apart from Macquarie Island, Australia lies between latitudes 9° and 44°S, and longitudes 112° and 154°E.
The population of persons doing and supporting scientific research on the continent and its nearby islands south of 60 degrees south latitude (the region covered by the Antarctic Treaty) varies from approximately 4,000 in summer to 1,000 in winter; in addition, approximately 1,000 personnel including ship's crew and scientists doing onboard research are present in the waters of the treaty region.
Antarctica was seen by many men as a place where men could imagine themselves heroic conquerors. In Western culture, frontier territories are often associated with masculinity. Antarctica itself was envisioned by many male explorers as a "virginal woman" or "monstrous feminine body" to be conquered by men. Women were often "invoked in terms of place naming and territorial conquest and later even encouraged to have babies in Antarctica." Using women as territorial conquest is probably at its most literal in the way that Argentina and Chile have flown pregnant women to Antarctica to give birth and stake a national claim to the area.
Silvia Morella de Palma was the first woman to give birth in Antarctica, delivering 3.4 kg (7 lb 8 oz) Emilio Palma at the Argentine Esperanza base 7 January 1978.
The southern polar region has no permanent human habitation. McMurdo Station is the largest research station in Antarctica, run by the United States. Other notable stations include Palmer Station and Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station (United States), Esperanza Base and Marambio Base (Argentina), Scott Base (New Zealand), and Vostok Station (Russia).
The McMurdo Station is a United States Antarctic research center on the south tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the United States Antarctic Program, a branch of the National Science Foundation. The station is the largest community in Antarctica, capable of supporting up to 1,258 residents, and serves as one of three United States Antarctic science facilities. All personnel and cargo going to or coming from Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station first pass through McMurdo.
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earth's surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area. It separates the "Old World" from the "New World".
At , Angola is the world's twenty-third largest country - comparable in size to Mali, or twice the size of France or of Texas. It lies mostly between latitudes 4° and 18°S, and longitudes 12° and 24°E.
Each year, scientists from 28 different nations conduct experiments not reproducible in any other place in the world. In the summer more than 4,000 scientists operate research stations; this number decreases to just over 1,000 in the winter. McMurdo Station, which is the largest research station in Antarctica, is capable of housing more than 1,000 scientists, visitors, and tourists.
The Falkland Islands have a land area of and a coastline estimated at . The archipelago consists of two main islands, West Falkland and East Falkland, and about 776 smaller islands. The islands are predominantly mountainous and hilly, with the major exception being the depressed plains of Lafonia (a peninsula forming the southern part of East Falkland). The Falklands consists of continental crust fragments resulting from the break-up of Gondwana and the opening of the South Atlantic that began 130 million years ago. The islands are located in the South Atlantic Ocean, on the Patagonian Shelf, about east of Patagonia in southern Argentina.
There were approximately 180 women in Antarctica in the 1990-1991 season. Women from several different countries were regularly members of over-wintering teams by 1992. The first all-women expedition reached the South Pole in 1993. Diana Patterson, the first female station leader on Antarctica, saw a change happening in 1995. She felt that many of the sexist views of the past had given way so that women were judged not by the fact that they were women, but "by how well you did your job."
In 1991, there were 142 "permanent residents" including 19 minors. "Residents" are families that live in Antarctica or scientists that have lived for more than two years. They were 121 men and 21 women that lived mostly in the colony of Esperanza and other bases. As of 1998–1999, Argentine Antarctica had a winter population of 165.
Vostok Station has an ice cap climate ("EF"), with subzero temperatures year round, typical as with much of Antarctica. Annual precipitation is only (all occurring as snow), making it one of the driest places on Earth. On average, Vostok station receives 26 days of snow per year. Average summer temperature is and average winter temperature is . It is one of the coldest spots on earth, with the lowest recorded temperature being .
Asia is the largest continent on Earth. It covers 9% of the Earth's total surface area (or 30% of its land area), and has the largest coastline, at . Asia is generally defined as comprising the eastern four-fifths of Eurasia. It is located to the east of the Suez Canal and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma–Manych Depression) and the Caspian and Black Seas. It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. Asia is subdivided into 48 countries, three of them (Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey) having part of their land in Europe.
Most of the story is centred on McMurdo Station, the largest settlement in Antarctica, which is run as a scientific research station by the United States. Robinson's characteristic multiple-protagonist style is employed here to show many aspects of polar life; among the viewpoints presented are those of X, an idealistic young man working as a General Field Assistant at McMurdo; Val, an increasingly embittered trek guide; and Wade Norton, who works for the Californian Senator Phil Chase (Wade and Phil also appear in the "Science in the Capital" trilogy). As well as McMurdo, the story involves the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, the Shackleton Glacier, the McMurdo Dry Valleys and a South American drilling platform near Roberts Massif.
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the largest country in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east. The population of / 1000000 round 0 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney. The country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.
Antarctica currently has no permanent population and therefore it has no citizenship nor government. All personnel present on Antarctica at any time are citizens or nationals of some sovereignty outside Antarctica, as there is no Antarctic sovereignty. The majority of Antarctica is claimed by one or more countries, but most countries do not explicitly recognize those claims. The area on the mainland between 90 degrees west and 150 degrees west is the only major land on Earth not claimed by any country. Until 2015 the interior of the Norwegian Sector, the extent of which had never been officially defined, was considered to be unclaimed. That year, Norway formally laid claim to the area between its Queen Maud Land and the South Pole.
The estimated Argentine Antarctica area is , of which is land. The ice in the glacier shell has a thickness of 2 km on average. Temperatures range from 0 °C in summer and -60 °C in winter although in certain points may drop to approximately -82 °C.
Hamilton led a two-man field party in Antarctica (October 1958–January 1959) for the International Geophysical Year, and launched a new understanding of Antarctica. He was the first to apply the name trans-Antarctic Mountains (two years later, formalized as Transantarctic Mountains) to that 3,500 km range. Hamilton recognized that a large sector of this range contained distinctive granitic rocks like South Australia's Adelaide orogenic belt. Associated fossils of diverse ages in Antarctica, Australia, and southernmost Africa further linked these continents, and supported then-radical explanations of continental drift. Before traveling to Antarctica, Hamilton was what he later described as a "closet drifter," aware that Southern Hemisphere geology provided powerful evidence favoring continental drift. He returned to Antarctica for fieldwork in 1963 and 1964 in other parts of the Transantarctic Mountains, including those once continuous with other Australian tracts. He also investigated in the field evidence for drift in Australia and South Africa, integrating his work with that of other researchers to show how Antarctica and other Gondwana continents had drifted apart.
Positioned asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the Antarctic Circle, Antarctica is the southernmost continent and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean; alternatively, it may be considered to be surrounded by the southern Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, or by the southern waters of the World Ocean. There are a number of rivers and lakes in Antarctica, the longest river being the Onyx. The largest lake, Vostok, is one of the largest sub-glacial lakes in the world. Antarctica covers more than , making it the fifth-largest continent, about 1.3 times as large as Europe. The coastline measures and is mostly characterised by ice formations, as the following table shows: