Why doesn the Arctic have a huge ice sheet like the Antarctic?
An ice sheet is a mass of ice sitting on land; the one that covers almost all of the Antarctic continent is more than two miles thick in places. This continent, which is larger than the USA’s contiguous 48 states, surrounds the South Pole. The Arctic Ocean surrounds the North Pole, which means its ice is sea ice that floats on the ocean. Greenland, in the Arctic, does have an ice sheet, but it’s smaller than Antarctica’s. The USATODAY.com Understanding polar ice page has a lot more information.
