Dr Carlstrom and his colleagues propose building an eight-metre-diameter radio telescope at the South Pole to search for such cold spots.

ECONOMIST: Cosmology

When the Arctic Oscillation turns negative, that is, when the winds weaken, the cold air normally trapped around the North Pole surges south.

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This pole-centred roundel of warm-in-cold is symptomatic of what climatologists call the negative phase of the Arctic oscillation (AO).

ECONOMIST: Britain��s cold snap is explained by the Arctic oscillation

And when the Cold War started, the Soviets said they were going to set up a base at the South Pole, so the U.S. rushed there first.

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