Antarctica

Antarctica, Earth's southernmost continent, is the coldest, driest, windiest, and highest continent on Earth — the coldest recorded temperature was -89.2°C. It holds 70% of the world's fresh water as ice and 90% of the world's ice. No indigenous human population has ever lived there; it is governed by the Antarctic Treaty (1959), which designates it a scientific preserve open to all nations. Antarctica's ice cores provide a 800,000-year record of Earth's atmosphere, revealing the relationship between CO₂ and temperature and providing the foundation for climate science. The Antarctic ozone hole, discovered in 1985, led to the Montreal Protocol — one of the most successful international environmental agreements. The continent is melting at an accelerating rate due to climate change.