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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/06/simply-mind-boggling-world-record-temperature-jump-in-antarctic-raises-fears-of-catastrophe>
"On 18 March, 2022, scientists at the Concordia research station on the east
Antarctic plateau documented a remarkable event. They recorded the largest jump
in temperature ever measured at a meteorological centre on Earth. According to
their instruments, the region that day experienced a rise of 38.5C above its
seasonal average: a world record.
This startling leap – in the coldest place on the planet – left polar
researchers struggling for words to describe it. “It is simply mind-boggling,”
said Prof Michael Meredith, science leader at the British Antarctic Survey. “In
sub-zero temperatures such a massive leap is tolerable but if we had a 40C rise
in the UK now that would take temperatures for a spring day to over 50C – and
that would be deadly for the population.”
This amazement was shared by glaciologist Prof Martin Siegert, of the
University of Exeter. “No one in our community thought that anything like this
could ever happen. It is extraordinary and a real concern,” he told the
Observer. “We are now having to wrestle with something that is completely
unprecedented.”
Poleward winds, which previously made few inroads into the atmosphere above
Antarctica, are now carrying more and more warm, moist air from lower latitudes
– including Australia – deep into the continent, say scientists, and these have
been blamed for the dramatic polar “heatwave” that hit Concordia. Exactly why
these currents are now able to plunge so deep into the continent’s air space is
not yet clear, however.
Nor has this huge temperature hike turned out to be an isolated event,
scientists have discovered. For the past two years they have been inundated
with rising numbers of reports of disturbing meteorological anomalies on the
continent. Glaciers bordering the west Antarctic ice-sheet are losing mass to
the ocean at an increasing rate, while levels of sea ice, which float on the
oceans around the continent, have plunged dramatically, having remained stable
for more than a century.
These events have raised fears that the Antarctic, once thought to be too cold
to experience the early impacts of global warming, is now succumbing
dramatically and rapidly to the swelling levels of greenhouse gases that humans
continue to pump into the atmosphere."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
