Ahh, But It's Cold Outside! Trivia Quiz

Answer: International Falls, Minnesota

International Falls has always been proud of its nickname and took umbrage when the town of Fraser cold-heartedly used it. This was not a frivolous lawsuit, and it wavered back and forth until settled in 2008, and Minnesota won. The day after settlement, the temperature in the winner's city was -40F (which is -40C as well, the only place where the two scales meet). International Falls is a border city with Canada, near the falls and bridge of the same name. The city lies on the Rainy River and covers about 6.4 square miles; it had a population of 6,424 in the 2010 census.
Recorded low temperature was -55F, and high was 103F. They have had 68 inches of snowfall during the winter season.
They celebrate their chilliness with a four day festival every year which features candlelight skiing, frozen turkey bowling and snow sculpting.

Answer: Stanley

Stanley is about 130 miles east of Boise. The BBC reported that Stanley had the highest number of coldest days for ten years in a row, from 1995 to 2005, within the contiguous 48 states. The town covers about half a square mile and its population in 2010 was 63.
Recorded low temperature for the town was -54F, and the high was 98F. Frosts can occur at any time of year and the snowfall can hover around 75 inches in the cold season.
The town of Frostproof is in Florida, at roughly the changing point from semi tropical to temperate. It is not frost-proof.

Answer: True

The confirmed coolth* was 74 degrees F below zero. The actual reading of -85 F was considered unconfirmed as the thermometer was outside at the time, and must be inside to be accepted. Nearby Snag, Yukon, established a confirmed record of -82.6 F, by using the accepted method. Selkirk had been a meeting place for the native Northern Tutchone tribe from 1889 onward, and became a great example of co-operative management between the natives and European settlers. In spite of their differences, they worked out a beneficial middle ground in which all were welcome; the process took many years and in the 1990s was assisted by the Heritage Branch of Yukon Government, which considers Selkirk a living cultural site.

*coolth is the opposite of warmth.

Answer: Rogers Pass

Uninhabited except for passing wildlife, Rogers Pass frequenters are migrating flocks of tundra swans, snow geese and Canada geese. Bald and Golden eagles, as well as many hawks, also pass overhead. The area is named for surveyor A.B. Rogers who also has a pass named for him in British Columbia. The 5,610 foot high area is traversed by highway 200, which offers wide shoulders for parking in some areas, so that bikers and hikers can settle before they take the Continental Divide Trail. An area of about 535,000 acres has been set aside and protected; it is one of the Grizzly bear's last large habitats.

Answer: Eismitte

Eismitte means middle of the ice, and this station was just about smack in the middle of Greenland, over 250 miles from either coast, and at an altitude of 9,843 feet above sea level. The station was inhabited only until 1931, but recorded low temperatures were -84 degrees F to a warm 27 degrees F over that time period.
From the middle of May to the end of July there is no sunset, and from late November to mid January, no sunrise.

Answer: North Ice, Greenland

North Ice was the name of an abandoned British research station, the North Greenland Expedition, which operated from 1952 to 1954. It was located on inland ice off the giant island in the North Atlantic. Greenland is neither a continent nor a completely independent country though it has had home rule since 1979. It is an autonomous possession of Denmark, and does not qualify for continency as it is part of the North American land mass. So it remains incontinent.
The native Inuit renamed the land Kalaallit Nunaat, and changed the name of its capital from Godthaab (Goodhope)to Nu'uk. Greenland's economy is subsidized by Denmark, which granted it the status of a county (amt) in 1953. Eventual self government and rule seems to be the intended goal. The population was 56,749 in 2012, primarily Inuit. Whaling, fishing and scientific study are very important, as well as its strategic position between the Americas and Europe. It has been estimated that if the Greenland ice sheet were to melt, it would raise the world's coastlines by 23 feet.
Elephant Island is named for its shape (somewhat like an elephant head) and its elephant seals. It lies 550 miles southeast of Cape Horn and is part of Antarctica. It is mountainous, icy, cold (-87 degrees F was one recording) and barren apart from the wildlife, but has been quibbled over by The U.K., Argentina and Chile. Brazil has two scientific stations open there in the summer, but the general consensus seems to be that no country can own any part of Antarctica and it should be up to all nations to preserve it as pristinely as possible. The Antarctic Treaty concerning this issue comes up for renewal in 2041.
Elephant Island has no safe harbor for ships, thus the population in 2010 was zero. This is the island where explorer Shackleton's men waited four and a half months in 1916 for rescue, subsisting on fish and whale blubber, with whale oil used for light and heat. The men who waited those long months called the place a 'Hell of an island'. To Shackleton's credit as a leader, there were no fatalities during this long and arduous exploration which lasted in all from 1914 to 1917.
Svalbard and Spitsbergen are large arctic islands in an archipelago that belongs to Norway and lies inside the Arctic Circle. Svalbard is home to the 'Global Seed Vault'. The population of the archipelago was 2,932 in 2011.
The island of Tierra Del Fuego (Land of Fire) is owned jointly by Chile and Argentina, and is lightly populated. Since its discovery in the 16th century, the native Selk'nam and Yaghan peoples have been virtually exterminated by unfamiliar diseases and European intrusion. The island covers over 18,000 square miles and supports oil and natural gas extraction as well as fishing and sheep farming. The climate is fairly mild and there is a good diversity of wildlife.

Answer: True

A record 96 degrees F below zero was set in 1924 and in 1933, with a high in the summer of 2010 of 94 degrees F above zero. In the 1920s and 1930s nobody hotly contested Oymyakon's right to the title of the coldest spot in the Northern Hemisphere. Oymyakon's population in 2010 was 472 people; they survived primarily on horse and reindeer meat and reindeer milk.

They grew some vegetables in the short summer, but seemed to prefer the protein and rich milk diet, much like the Masai of Africa. Oymyakon lies in a valley in the Khrebet Mountains.

The valley is blocked on two sides by mountains and has permafrost year round; it lies about 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Reindeer also supply fur for clothing, which is a much better insulator than synthetic materials. One problem the people have is in burying their dead: it is necessary to burn out a grave through the permafrost, and there are times when the bodies are heaved back up. Oymyakon served as an exile gulag in Stalin's 'Death Ring' during the Soviet regime.

Answer: 119

Plateau Station has been abandoned since 1969. It had been an American staging and research station on the central Antarctic Plateau. The recorded 119 degrees F below zero was set prior to its closing.
The frost layer is about 12,140 feet thick and has hosted scientists from many countries over the years. The plan was to drill through the frost in order to study the geological layers that will give evidence of the earth's temperatures over the last 500,000 years. This is a very costly, time consuming and dangerous process.

Answer: 11,444 feet

High up and near the South Geomagnetic Pole on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, sits
Vostok. A balmy day there is rarely over 13 degrees F below zero. In July, 1983, a temperature of -128 degrees F was recorded.
Drilling through the 2.5 mile thick ice will reveal, among other things, a large buried lake 31 by 160 miles. The area gets little snow, and is technically a desert. Many scientists from around the globe are eager to study the ice layers, but they are not easily uncovered - the layers, not the scientists. Didn't mean to leave them dangling.

Answer: -459.67 degrees

Why so particular about the decimal points, you wonder - on July 11, 2003, a team of scientists from M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) reached a record half a billionth of a degree above absolute zero in their lab. The theory is that all molecular activity ceases at zero degrees Kelvin, which equals -459.67 F, or -273.15 C.

Therefore it is impossible. I really hope that's sound reasoning by scientists - after all, things are only impossible until they are achieved. Billionths make all the difference when you're at those levels.

It has been proved that molecules act very differently at such low temperatures, which will hopefully lead to great progress in the fields of hyperconductivity and superfluidity. The conundrum may be that there is no known container that can hold the molecules without using a magnetic field. Atoms tend to bounce off the walls at low temps (probably trying to maintain their thermal energy), and crawl at high temps.