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By Jack Williams, USATODAY.com
Q: I know that there are 24 time zones around the world
but what if any time zones are on the North and South
pole? Someone told me that the time is the same on both
poles.
A: There are really more than 24 time zones since some
nations use times that differ by a half hour, instead
of an hour, from the time zones on either side.
These half-hour zones are like "pockets" inside
what I'll call the regular time zones, which have boundries
running between the North and South poles. The basic idea
is that the time zone boundries follow lines of longitude
from pole to pole, but in many, many cases they zig-zag
back and forth to follow state or national boundries.
If you go to our Sun, moon, stars and time page you'll
find several links to information about time zones.
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.
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