ANTARCTICA’S MELTDOWN

It’s the coldest place on the planet, but a hot topic when it comes to the climate crisis. Antarctica is a massive continent where 90 per cent of the world’s ice can be found. For more than 100 million years, however, the continent covering the South Pole was a tropical haven, before a dramatic climatic shift stripped it of its lush green surface and replaced it with an icy coat around 34 million years ago. Since then the Antarctic has become a frozen behemoth, with an average surface ice thickness of 2,160 metres and temperatures that can plummet to below -80 degrees Celsius. It’s made