Extremely high temperatures in both the North and South Poles! Experts: It's quite unusual

According to foreign media reports, the Earth's North and South Poles have experienced abnormally high temperatures recently, with parts of Antarctica about 40°C higher than average and the Arctic about 30°C higher than average. This "surprised" researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). They warned that extreme conditions will become more common due to the climate crisis.

Both Antarctic and Arctic experience extreme heat waves

On March 18, as the Antarctic region approaches autumn, weather stations in the region broke records. According to a tweet from Maximiliano Herrera, an extreme weather record tracker, the temperature at Concordia Station in Antarctica, 3.4 kilometers above sea level, reached -12.2°C, nearly 40°C above the historical average temperature for the same period, while the temperature at Vostok Station (Vostok Station) at an even higher altitude reached -17.7°C, about 15°C above the record high. The temperature in Terra Nova on the coast was also well above freezing, reaching 7°C.

At the same time, the temperature of some weather stations near the Arctic was about 28 degrees Celsius higher than the average level during the same period, and the areas near the North Pole were close to or had reached the melting point. High temperature records were broken in some parts of Norway, and unprecedented abnormal high temperatures were also seen in Greenland and Russia's Franz Josef Archipelago.

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NSIDC scientist Walter Meier said that the seasons in the North and South Poles are opposite now, so it is not common to see high temperatures in both poles at the same time, so this is definitely a very unusual thing in March.

The Antarctic continent as a whole was about 4.8°C warmer on March 18 compared to the 1979-2000 baseline. On the same day, the Arctic as a whole was 3.3°C warmer than the 1979-2000 average.

In contrast, the world as a whole was only 0.6°C above the average from 1979 to 2000. Globally, the average temperature from 1979 to 2000 was about 0.3°C above the 20th century average.

What causes the high temperature?

"Both of these weather events are associated with the transport of heat and moisture toward the poles," Dr. Zachary Rabe, a climate scientist at Colorado State University, said on Twitter.

Alex Sen Gupta, an associate professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said that strong winds from Australia are the cause of the temperature anomaly in Antarctica. In the Southern Ocean south of Australia, a series of violent weather systems have formed extremely strong winds extending from Australia to East Antarctica.

Professor Julie Albrester, a climate researcher at Monash University in Australia, said that strong rain clouds brought warm and humid air to the east of Antarctica, which was also the main factor causing the high temperatures there.

"Right now, Antarctica has the lowest sea ice extent on record," Albraster said. "A lot of the sea ice around Antarctica close to the continent is now ocean. It will be very interesting to see if there is a connection between the low Antarctic sea ice extent and these high temperatures."

What are the consequences of extreme weather?

The rapid rise in temperatures at the poles is a warning of disruptions in Earth's climate system. Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its starkest warning yet about the impacts of climate change, saying that unprecedented warming signals have emerged and that some changes, such as polar melting, could quickly become irreversible.

The heat waves in the Arctic and Antarctic are a strong signal of human damage to the climate, and the melting of glaciers may also trigger further cascading changes and accelerate climate collapse.

"This weather event is a prime example of atmospheric warming above the ice shelf," said Professor Andrew Mackintosh, dean of Monash University's School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment.

In Antarctica, he said, high temperatures "would have to persist for quite some time to have a substantial impact," but the main concern is the weakening of ice shelves. Because ice shelves are extensions of ice sheets that float on the ocean, they play an important role in keeping inland ice in check. Without them, grounded ice located inland would flow into the ocean at a faster rate, contributing to sea level rise.

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In addition, Matt King, head of the Australian Centre of Excellence for Antarctic Science, said there have been signs in recent days that surface ice along the East Antarctic coastline may be melting and the snow softening.

Last year, researchers found that sea ice across much of the Arctic was thinning twice as fast as previously thought. The last intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic collapsed in 2020 due to rising temperatures.

The melting of ice creates a vicious cycle: larger areas of ocean water are exposed, increasing the absorption of solar energy, which leads to faster warming of the atmosphere.

What role does climate change play?

Scientists warn that the extreme heat weather events occurring in the North and South Poles are "historic", "unprecedented" and "dramatic".

"Most of East Antarctica is more than 20 degrees Celsius above normal," Gupta said. "The warming started on March 15 and is still ongoing."

Can this event be attributed to climate change, La Niña, or neither?

According to the Australian ABC TV on the 22nd, according to IPCC data, since 1979, extreme heat events in the Arctic have increased, and the Arctic may see an average of one ice-free summer every ten years, with a temperature increase of 2°C. In the Antarctic Peninsula, scientists have observed a strong warming trend since the 1950s. The IPCC predicts that the Antarctic Peninsula, parts of western and eastern Antarctica will continue to warm at a higher-than-average rate this century.

It is expected that with continued warming of between 2°C and 3°C, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will disappear completely within a few thousand years, and the water formed by the melt will cause the sea level to rise by more than 3 meters.

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But while the current extreme event is consistent with climate projections, and we may see more of it in Antarctica and the Arctic in the near future, it is too early to conclude that the driver of this particular event is climate change.

Professor Jin said that due to the lack of long-term temperature records in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, it is difficult to link this "heat wave" to historical factors.

"The first accurate temperature record starts in the late 1950s, so it's hard to work out what's unusual and what's not," he said. But, he warned, the future will depend on what humans do about carbon emissions, or we may see these types of temperature changes more often.

Source: Science and Technology Daily

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