Why is the South Pole colder than the North Pole?
The South Pole is a continent, and a rather high mountainous one. It’s 9,000 feet higher than the north pole, which is more or less at sea level, so it’s going to be colder just for that reason. Also, because the North Pole is not on a land mass, warm water circulates under it from further south. The South Pole has dirt under it, and so it retains the cold that has built up there over millions of years. Sources: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/scienceques2005/20060310.
At the South Pole, the surface of the ice sheet is more than two kilometers above sea level, where the air is much thinner and colder. Antarctica is, on average, the highest continent on the earth. However, the floating ice surface at the North Pole is only a foot or so above sea level. The Arctic Ocean, at the North Pole, acts as a heat reservoir, warming the cold atmosphere above it in the winter and drawing heat from the atmoshpere in the summer.
Because the north pole does not sit on a mass of land. It is just ice. Therefor sits at a lower altitude (sea level) within the oceans water witch warm it. The south pole sits at higher altitude in the cool air. The earths tilt has nothing to do with it because 6 months later as the earth rotates around the sun. The opposing pole will be the one nearer the sun.
