I would like to know what time is in the north or south pole? Do they have time zones?

Answer 1

An excellent question!

Since there are no boundries in the polar regions — the Arctic is ocean and the continent of Antarctica has no nations - time zone lines follow longitude lines in these places.

Since all longitude lines come together at the poles, you can walk through all of the time zones in seconds by walking around the pole that marks the South Pole. Imagine walking around the pole in the photo above on this page.

There's no North Pole pole since drifting sea ice covers the location and anything put there, such as an automated weather station, drifts away. Our story about the Christmas Day North Pole temperature has more on this.

As a practical matter, having all of the time zones means there is really no time zone for the polar regions. In Antarctica, the U.S. stations uses New Zealand time because most Americans who go to Antarctica for the U.S. Antarctic Program fly to and from there via Christchurch.

Once you arrive in New Zealand for the U.S. Antarctic Program, you could fly to Antarctica, everywhere that a U.S. airplane could take you on the continent, and back to Christchurch without ever having to change the time on your watch.

Since the only station at the South Pole is the U.S. station, the time used there is New Zealand time.

Other nations tend to use their home time zones in Antarctica, which makes radio and e-mail contacts simpler.

The permanent research stations in the Arctic are in countries, such as the Barrow Science Center in Barrow, Alaska, and these use the local time. When researchers venture out onto the Arctic Ocean ice, they can use any time the wish. But, in most cases it's probably easier to use the time for the institution, such as a university, that you are working for.

You can learn a lot more about what goes on in the polar regions by going to our Science, life and travel in the polar regions page

Answer 2

No there are no time zones at the North and South poles. When the northern hemisphere faces the Sun, it has summer and the North pole six months of daylight. At this time the southern hemisphere goes through a wintry season and South pole has six months of night.

Answer 3

i don't think they have time nor the zones.As for the time,it all depends on the ppl.why,he turn to the sun then the time is noon while turning away the time is night.As for the zone,u know,the earth is divided into 24 parts and so 24 zones by 23 longtitudes which meet at 2 points,the north and south pole point.so as far as the points r concerned,they don't have zone of their own.but a little step away,all change.

Answer 4

Talking about South Pole Amundsen-Scott Station, Wikipedia says:
"The station uses New Zealand time (UTC+12, UTC+13 during daylight saving time) since all flights to McMurdo station depart from Christchurch and therefore all official travel from the pole goes through that country"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amundsen-Scott_South_Pole_Station

North Pole doesn't have an official zone time.

Answer 5

on the South Pole they use New Zealand time because of the fact a important sort of the flights arrive from McMurdo and Christchurch. McMurdo is in an identical time zone as NZ. yet you're able to desire to easily as easily decide on the different time zone. all of them converge on the poles.

Answer 6

Great question.

Actually, the time zones stem from the poles so I would have to say it depends on where in the poles.

Answer 7

Officially, they use UTC. However...

The north pole has no permanent outposts.

For the south pole, Stations in Antarctica generally keep the time of their supply bases, thus both the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station (U.S.) and McMurdo Station (U.S.) use New Zealand time (UTC+12 southern winter, UTC+13 southern summer).

Answer 8

every degree on the north and south pole have different times but u abviously can see the sun only at one place.also, the sun doesnt seem to move the whole day so it doesnt matter what time it is.

Answer 9

I figure that it is so cold there that it doesn't really matter what time zone they are in.

Answer 10

They`re so cold and sleepy most of the time, the heck they care about time.