Antarctica

Record-breaking heatwaves hit both Antarctica and the Arctic simultaneously this week, with temperatures reaching 47 degree C and 30 degree C higher than ...

As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. The IPCC finds global warming between 2 degree C and 3 degree C this century would see the West Antarctic Ice Sheet almost completely lost. This is because the melting sea ice reveals more ocean beneath, and the ocean absorbs more heat as it’s darker. If the warm conditions cause sea ice to break up earlier than normal, it could have dire impacts for many animals. But we won’t know if there’s any damage to the plants until next summer when we can visit the moss beds again. Adélie penguins, which live across the entire Antarctic coastline, have recently finished their summer breeding. The rain was driven primarily by an atmospheric river – a narrow band of moisture collected from warm oceans. But that’s not to say large swings in temperature didn’t occur. While it’s too soon to say for sure, we do know climate change is making polar heatwaves more common and severe, and the poles are warming faster than the global average. It was coupled with a very intense low pressure system over the east Antarctic interior. Likewise, up north, the Arctic is just emerging from winter.

As the Arctic emerges from the darkest winter days, Antarctica is about to enter them. Atmospheric rivers carried warmth and moisture to both.

In Antarctica, a lack of historical records makes it difficult to contextualize this weather. Atmospheric rivers — long, flowing columns of water vapor, like rivers in the sky — carried large amounts of moisture and warm air to both poles, causing the double-whammy polar heat wave. "Are these two heat waves linked? The poles are in opposite seasons — it's fall in Antarctica, just starting to chill, while the Arctic is emerging from the dark depths of winter. While scientists can't directly attribute these warming events to climate change, it's possible that later studies will allow them to do so. Vostok station, sitting 2 miles high on the Antarctic plateau, registered a similarly extreme temperature of 0.1 degrees.

How this month produced a mind-boggling warm-up in eastern Antarctica (and the Arctic). Two atmospheric rivers surge toward opposite poles.

Meanwhile, the sea ice that expands and contracts around the continent each year reached its lowest level in 43 years of satellite monitoring on February 25. Above all, what the twin polar warmings reinforce is that, more than ever, we can expect the unexpected in a warming atmosphere. “Incursions of warm air seem to be regular if not frequent occurrences,” Turner wrote in an email. Western Antarctica, and especially the peninsula extending north toward South America, have warmed dramatically since the mid-20th century, outpacing the rate of worldwide warming. “The snow is so reflective that it doesn’t hold any heat, and there’s no rock for thousands of kilometers in any direction.” Temperatures dipped below -60°C at the South Pole on March 21 even as highs at Vostok and Concordia rose above –26°C, readings that would have set monthly highs had they occurred at the start of the warm spell instead of well into it. Akers recounted his experiences in a series of guest posts for Category 6 (the predecessor of this blog). However, the reading was a mind-blowing 67°F above the daily average high of around –49°C (–56°F). By mid-March, when darkness is fast returning, “temperatures are typically almost at the winter minimum, not just halfway between summer and winter. The atmospheric river didn’t extend as far inland as South Pole Station, where readings remained much closer to seasonal averages. The 26.8°F represents the largest margin in world history for breaking a monthly record at any site with at least 40 years of data, according toMaximiliano Herrera, an expert on international weather records. With the initial shock now behind them, scientists are taking stock of exactly what happened and what it might portend.