Record 18.3° celsius recorded in Antarctica

Antarctica- one of the coldest places on earth is fast becoming a victim of climate change.

The United Nations World Meteorological Organization, on July 1, recognized a new record high temperature for Antarctica. On February 6, 2020, the Esperanza station (the Argentine research station in Trinity Peninsula) experienced 18.3° celsius. The previous record for the Antarctic region was 17.5° celsius, recorded on March 24, 2015, at the Esperanza station.

“The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest-warming regions of the planet, almost 3° celsius over the last 50 years. This new temperature record is therefore consistent with the climate change we are observing. WMO is working in partnership with the Antarctic Treaty System to help preserve this pristine continent”, said Professor Talaas, the Secretary-General of WMO.

According to the UN Agency, the high temperatures in Antarctica are a result of a large high-pressure system creating ‘fohn-conditions’, which entail warm, dry, gusty downslope winds creating significant surface warming. Although the melting of ice mostly happens in summer in the presence of sunlight, these Fohn-winds can cause significant melting even during dark polar winters. This, in turn, caused both the Esperanza station and the Seymore Island to warm up. Similar past scenarios had also produced conditions conducive for such temperature rise.

The Antarctic continent encompasses an area of 14 million square kilometres and is covered by 26.5 million cubic kilometres of ice. The average annual temperature ranges from about minus 10° celsius at the coast to minus 60° celsius in the highest parts of the interior. The new record high temperature was recognized after an extensive review of the weather situation on the Antarctic Peninsula carried out by a committee for WMO' Weather and Climate Extremes Archive. The committee, however, rejected Antarctica’s claim of a much higher 20.75° celsius temperature recorded on Seymore Island in 2020.

“Verification of this maximum temperature record is important because it helps us to build up a picture of the weather and climate in one of Earth’s final frontiers. Even more so than the Arctic, the Antarctic is poorly covered in terms of continuous and sustained weather and climate observations and forecasts, even though both play an important role in driving climate and ocean patterns and in sea-level rise”, said Professor Talaas in a statement.

The Earth’s average surface temperature has gone up by 1° celsius since the 19th century, enough to increase the intensity of drought, heatwaves and tropical cyclones. But the air over Antarctica has raised more than twice that much. Rising ocean temperature and global air are posing a great threat to ice sheets and glaciers in the polar regions. The warming temperature and the increasing strength of Westerly winds can enhance the Antarctic ice sheets melting even in winters due to the Fohn wind effect.

Recent research has shown that warming of 2° celsius could push the melting of ice sheets atop Greenland and the West Antarctic- with enough frozen water to lift oceans by 13 metres- past a point of no return. The new record shown has once again proven that climate change requires urgent measures.

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