NewsTracker Answers for week of Feb. 10, 2020

Q: Scientists at Argentina's Esperanza research station on the northern tip of Antarctica’s peninsula reported a high temperature of 64.9 degrees last week, the highest since record-keeping began in 1960. The area is one of the fastest warming places on earth. Where is Antarctica?

Circle the area on this map


Q: The Antarctic Continent is the world’s . . .

A. Coldest

B. Driest

C. Windiest

D. All of the above


D. Most of Antarctica is a polar desert receiving little annual precipitation, yet it contains more than 70% of the world’s fresh water locked into ancient glaciers that account for 90% of the ice on the planet. Edges of that vast ice sheet have been melting faster as global temperatures rise.


Q: More than 100 million years ago, dinosaurs fed in vast forests covering Antarctica. In that much hotter world, Antarctica was still connected to which continent?

A. Africa

B. Australia

C. South America

D. All of the above


C. While scientists say nearly all of the world’s land masses were once connected, what is now Antarctica’s peninsula was last linked to what is now the southern tip of South America. The tectonic plates that make up the planet surface continually move, tearing continents apart and crashing them together over hundreds of millions of years.


Q: In our relatively brief existence on earth, human beings have never experienced a world so hot that it brought forests to the antarctic and arctic. What is the biggest factor that determines whether the globe becomes an ice ball or a hothouse?

A. Carbon cycle

B. Earth orbit

C. Forest fires

D. Sun spots


A. When much of the earth’s carbon is circulating in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, it acts as a blanket trapping the sun’s heat near the planet surface. Over millions of years, rain sweeps carbon dioxide from the air and feeds it to plants and animals which turn into carbon-rich rocks and minerals. When carbon dioxide falls, solar heat is allowed to escape back into space.


Q: In past geologic eons, volcanoes spewed most of the globe-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Human activity has generated most of the current rise in carbon dioxide. The last time carbon dioxide levels were as high as today, ocean levels were high enough to cover which state?

A. Colorado

B. Florida

C. Montana

D. Tennessee


B. The last time the atmosphere had a carbon dioxide concentration of more than 400 parts per million, enough ice melted to raise ocean levels as much as 100 feet - higher than most of Florida. It will take a long time for global temperatures to rise enough to melt as much ice. But the last time carbon dioxide levels were this high, human beings did not exist.