This week, the temperature in the polar regions reached 47 degrees C and 30 degrees C higher than normal.
The heat waves are strange at any time in the country, but especially now as the country prepares to go into winter darkness. The northern part of the planet is just emerging from winter.
Are the two heatwaves related? It is most likely a coincidence, we don't know yet. We know that the weather systems in the polar regions are connected to other parts of the world.
Is climate change the cause? It could be. Climate change is making polar heatwaves more common and severe, and the poles are warming faster than the global average.
Let's take a closer look at what's driving the extreme anomalies for each region, and the flow-on effects for polar wildlife like penguins and polar bears.
A slow, intense high pressure system located southeast of Australia carried a lot of warm air and water deep into the interior of Antarctica. It was coupled with a very intense low pressure system.
The cloud cover trapped heat from the surface and made matters worse.
The glaciers and the ice cap in the interior of the continent weren't melting because of the cold weather. Large swings in temperature are1-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-6556
There is a website called ClimateReanalyzer.org.
The air temperature anomalies are above the ground.
Vostok in the middle of the ice plateau hit a high of -17.7°C, 15 degrees higher than the previous record. The Italian-French research station on the high plateau experienced its highest ever temperature in March, which was 40 degrees above the average.
The story is different on the coast as rain fell, which is not common for the continent.
The rain was driven by a narrow band of water collected from warm oceans. Large amounts of water can be moved across vast distances at scales greater than the continents with the help of an atmospheric river.
The atmospheric rivers dump relatively large amounts of snow, which contributes to the ice sheets. When the temperature rises above freezing, rain falls over the island.
On March 15 and 16 the air temperature at the Australian Casey Station reached a new maximum of 5.6°C, which will melt ice.
This is the second time in two years that the station has experienced a heat wave. In February 2020, the temperature on the Antarctic Peninsula was 18.3 degrees C.
What might this mean for wildlife?
Adlie penguins, which live across the entire coastline, have recently finished their breeding season. The Adélie penguin chicks had already left for sea to start hunting for food, so the heatwave did not affect them.
mosses were in their annual phase of drying out for the winter and may have been affected by the rain. We will not know if the plants have been damaged until next summer when we can visit the moss beds again.
There was a weather pattern last week. An intense low pressure system formed off the north-eastern coast of the United States. An atmospheric river formed at its junction with a high pressure system.
Warm air was funneled into the circle. A new maximum temperature was recorded by Svalbald in Norway.
The low pressure system was called a bomb cyclone by US researchers because it formed so quickly.
There is a website called ClimateReanalyzer.org.
The air temperature anomalies are above the ground.
There was a lot of rain in the last few days, and the winter sea ice was already very low.
If the warm conditions cause sea ice to break up earlier than normal, it could have dire impacts on animals. Sea ice is a crucial habitat for polar bears, allowing them to hunt seals and travel long distances.
Losing sea ice is a problem for many people in the northern part of the world.
The bomb cyclone weather system brought chaotic weather to many populated areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Three weeks of warm weather have caused flowers in northern Norway to bloom early.
Climate patterns are becoming more variable according to modelling. This means that this may be a sign of things to come under climate change.
The rest of the world is warming at a slower rate. The melting sea ice reveals more ocean beneath, and the ocean absorbs more heat as it becomes darker.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ice-free summers are possible by the 2050s.
The future of Antarctica looks concerning. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is almost certain to be lost due to global warming. Climate change will be avoided if global emissions are brought down to net zero as fast as possible.
Dana M Bergstrom is the Principal Research Scientist at the University of Wollongong.
This article is free to use under a Creative Commons license. The original article is worth a read.
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