It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, February 17, 2020
UN: Antarctic high temp records will take months to verify
In this undated file photo, a lonely penguin appears in Antarctica during the southern hemisphere's summer season. The temperature in northern Antarctica hit nearly 65 degrees (18.3 degrees Celsius), a likely heat record on the continent best known for snow, ice, and penguins. The reading was taken Thursday, Feb. 5, 2020 at an Argentine research base and still needs to be verified by the World Meteorological Organization. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Jana, File)
Record high temperatures reportedly measured in Antarctica will take months to verify, the U.N. weather agency said Sunday.
A spokesman for the World Meteorological Organization said the measurements made by researchers from Argentina and Brazil earlier this month have to undergo a formal process to ensure that they meet international standards.
"A formal decision on whether or not this is a record is likely to be several months away," said Jonathan Fowler, the WMO spokesman.
Scientists at an Argentine research base measured a temperature of 18.3 degrees Celsius (nearly 65 degrees Fahrenheit) Feb. 6 on a peninsula that juts out from Antarctica toward the southern tip of South America. The previous record there was 17.5 degrees celsius (63.5 degrees Fahrenheit) in March 2015.
Last week, researchers from Brazil claimed to have measured temperatures of 20.75 degrees Celsius on an island off the peninsula —beating the record for the entire Antarctic region of 19.8 Celsius in January 1982.
Fowler said both of the new measurements would need to be transmitted to Prof. Randall Cerveny, a researcher at Arizona State University who examines reported temperature records for WMO.
Cerveny then shares the data with a wider group of scientists who "will carefully evaluate the available evidence (including comparisons to surrounding stations) and debate the merits and problems of the observation," said Fowler.
The evaluation normally takes six to nine months, after which Cerveny would "formally either accept or reject the potential extreme," giving official WMO approval to the new record, he said.
Climate change is causing the Arctic and the Antarctic to warm faster than other parts of the planet.
Argentina’s Esperanza base in Antarctica reported a record high temperature this week. Vanderlei Almeida/AFP via Getty Images
The Antarctic region has set another stunningly high temperature record: 69.35 degrees Fahrenheit (20.75°C).
Brazilian scientists detected the balmy temperature on February 9 on Seymour Island, just off the tip of the Trinity Peninsula, the section of Antarctica closest to South America, first reported by The Guardian.
“We are seeing the warming trend in many of the sites we are monitoring, but we have never seen anything like this,” said Carlos Schaefer, a Brazilian government scientist who studies the Antarctic, told The Guardian.
The new record came less than two days after a temperature of 64.9 degrees F (18.3°C) was recorded on the continent — which broke the previous record set in 2015.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that Esperanza, Argentina’s research base on the Trinity Peninsula, detected the previous balmy temperature spike on February 7. The record prior to that, 63.5 degrees, in 2015.
Esperanza Base at the Northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula reported a daily high temperature of 18.3 °C (65 °F).
“The record appears to be likely associated (in the short term) with what we call a regional ‘foehn’ event over the area: a rapid warming of air coming down a slope/mountain,” said Randall Cerveny, WMO’s weather and climate extremes rapporteur, in a statement.
Animation of T850 in °C (temperature at 850hPa) showing this heat wave over the Antarctic Peninsula. This will be followed tomorrow by an interesting foehn event according to GFS. https://t.co/IbZ2KFKuxMpic.twitter.com/J195ZAw1lY— Xavier Fettweis (@xavierfettweis) February 7, 2020
Shortly after the heat spike, the European Space Agency reported that a 120 square mile chunk of ice had broken off the the Pine Island Glacier, one of the continent’s most endangered glaciers.
❄️ The Pine Island glacier calving event was captured by #Sentinel2 ️ in true colour yesterday, 11 February, where many large icebergs are clearly visible.
“Pine Island glacier, like its neighbouring Thwaites Glacier, has been dramatically losing ice over the last 25 years,” according to the WMO.
It’s currently summer in the southern hemisphere, and even icy Antarctica starts to warm up as it receives uninterrupted sunlight through the season. However, temperatures usually don’t get much higher than 50 degrees.
On this rapidly warming planet of ours, the polar regions are heating up faster than the rest. Earth has warmed up by just over 1.8 degrees on average since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, when humans began spewing heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. But the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by 5.4 degrees in just the last 50 years.
That rising heat is particularly worrying because it’s fueling loss in the world’s largest reservoir of ice: the Antarctic ice sheets. If all the ice in Antarctica were to melt, it would raise global sea levels by 190 feet. It’s hard to know exactly how much Antarctica’s ice is contributing to global sea-level rise right now, but several estimates show that this ice could add upward of 16 inches of sea-level rise by the end of the century based on current rates.
The latest science also shows an acceleration in ice melt. Between 1979 and 2017, the annual rate of ice loss increased sixfold. This cold freshwater flowing into the ocean in turn is influencing weather patterns around the world in ways that scientists are still trying to understand.
Last month, 50-year-old climate activist Lewis Pugh swam in a river formed beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet to highlight the impacts of warming.
The opposite end of the world is also warming rapidly. In 2018, the Arctic experienced its heat wave in winter for the third year in a row. Together, these events show that a lot more heat and change are in store for the coolest parts of the world.
Antarctica registers record temperature of over 20 C
Glaciers are pictured in Antarctica's Chiriguano Bay in November 2019
Scientists in Antarctica have recorded a new record temperature of 20.75 degrees Celsius (69.35 Fahrenheit), breaking the barrier of 20 degrees for the first time on the continent, a researcher said Thursday.
"We'd never seen a temperature this high in Antarctica," Brazilian scientist Carlos Schaefer told AFP.
He cautioned that the reading, taken at a monitoring station on an island off the continent's northern tip on February 9, "has no meaning in terms of a climate-change trend," because it is a one-off temperature and not part of a long-term data set.
But news that the icy continent is now recording temperatures in the relatively balmy 20s is likely to further fuel fears about the warming of the planet.
The reading was taken at Seymour Island, part of a chain off the peninsula that curves out from the northern tip of Antarctica.
The island is home to Argentina's Marambio research base.
Schaefer, a soil scientist, said the reading was taken as part of a 20-year-old research project on the impact of climate change on the region's permafrost.
The previous high was in the 19s, he said.
"We can't use this to anticipate climatic changes in the future. It's a data point," he said.
"It's simply a signal that something different is happening in that area."
Glaciers are pictured at Chiriguano Bay at night in Antarctica in November 2019
Map of Antarctica locating Seymour Island which recorded its hottest ever temperature on February 9.
A Half Moon Island iceberg is pictured in Antarctica in November 2019
Still, he added, a temperature that high had never been registered in Antarctica.
Accelerating melt-off from glaciers and especially ice sheets in Antarctica is helping drive sea level rises, threatening coastal megacities and small island nations.
The news came a week after Argentina's National Meteorological Service recorded the hottest day on record for Argentine Antarctica: 18.3 degrees Celsius at midday at the Esperanza base, located near the tip of the Antarctic peninsula.
The previous record stood at 17.5 degrees on March 24, 2015, it said. It has been recording Antarctic temperatures since 1961.
The past decade has been the hottest on record, the United Nations said last month, with 2019 the second-hottest year ever, after 2016.
And 2020 looks set to continue the trend: last month was the hottest January on record.
UN assesses if Antarctica temperature reading is record high
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
The U.N. weather agency said Friday that an Argentine research base on the northern tip of Antarctica is reporting a temperature that, if confirmed, could be a record high for the icy continent. World Meteorological Organization spokeswoman Clare Nullis, citing figures from Argentina's national weather service, said the Esperanza base recorded 18.3 degrees C elsius ( 64.9 Fahrenheit) on Thursday—topping the former record of 17.5 degrees tallied in March 2015.
The WMO's committee that draws on the agency's weather and climate archives is now expected to verify whether the reading would amount to a new record.
"Everything we have seen thus far indicates a likely legitimate record but we will of course begin a formal evaluation of the record once we have full data from SMN and on the meteorological conditions surrounding the event," said WMO's Weather and Climate Extremes rapporteur, Randal Cerveny, referring to the acronym for Argentina's weather service.
"The record appears to be likely associated (in the short term) with what we call a regional 'foehn' event over the area," Cerveny said, defining it as a rapid warming of air coming down a slope or mountain.
WMO says the Antarctic Peninsula, on the continent's northwest tip near South America, is among the fastest warming regions on Earth—at almost 3 degrees Celsius over the last half-century.
Some 87 percent of glaciers along the west coast of the peninsula have retreated over that 50-year span, with most showing "an accelerated retreat" over the last 12 years, WMO said.Argentine Antarctica has hottest day on record
It’s T-Shirt Weather in Antarctica as Temperature Breaks Record Laura Millan Lombrana
(Bloomberg) -- The temperature at one research base in Antarctica reached a record-breaking 18.3 degrees Celsius (65 Fahrenheit) on Thursday, almost a full degree above the previous high set five years ago.
Cape Folger on the Budd Coast on January 11, 2008 in
the Australian Antarctic Territory.
Argentine scientists on the Esperanza base who confirmed the reading said that wasn’t the only record broken this week. The nation’s Marambio site registered the highest temperature for the month of February since 1971. Thermometers there hit 14.1 Celsius, above the previous February 2013 reading of 13.8 Celsius.
The reports are shocking, but not surprising, said Frida Bengtsson, who is leading a expedition to the Antarctic for the environmental group Greenpeace.
“We’ve been in the Antarctic for the last month, documenting the dramatic changes this part of the world is undergoing as our planet warms,” she said in an email. “In the last month, we’ve seen penguin colonies sharply declining under the impacts of climate change in this supposedly pristine environment.”
Antarctica is among the fastest-warming regions in the planet, with the Antarctic Peninsula, where the Argentine bases are located, warming particularly quickly, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Average temperatures on the continent have risen almost 3 degree Celsius over the past 50 years, and during that time glaciers along the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula have retreated.
WMO experts will now investigate whether the warm event recorded by Argentine scientists is a weather phenomenon known as foehn. That is a common event in Alpine regions that often involves high winds at altitude and the rapid warming of air as it heads down slopes or peaks, driven by significant air pressure differences, the WMO said in a statement.
The WMO will also determine whether the temperature extreme is a new record for the entire Antarctic landmass. The Signy island in the Antarctic region, which includes everywhere south of 60 degrees latitude, recorded an all-time high temperature of 19.8 Celsius in January 1982. The average annual temperature ranges from about -10 Celsius on the Antarctic coast to -60 Celsius at the highest points of the interior.
(Updates with ongoing research by the World Meteorological Organization.)
Antarctica appears to have broken a heat record
by Christina Larson
In this undated file photo, a lonely penguin appears in Antarctica during the southern hemisphere's summer season. The temperature in northern Antarctica hit nearly 65 degrees (18.3 degrees Celsius), a likely heat record on the continent best known for snow, ice, and penguins. The reading was taken Thursday, Feb. 5, 2020 at an Argentine research base and still needs to be verified by the World Meteorological Organization. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Jana, File)
The temperature in northern Antarctica hit nearly 65 degrees (18.3 degrees Celsius), a likely heat record on the continent best known for snow, ice and penguins.
The reading was taken Thursday at an Argentine research base and still needs to be verified by the World Meteorological Organization.
"Everything we have seen thus far indicates a likely legitimate record," Randall Cerveny, who researches records for the organization, said in a statement. He added that he is waiting for full data to confirm.
The research base, called Esperanza, sits on a peninsula that juts up toward the southern tip of South America. The peninsula has warmed significantly over the past half century—almost 5.4 degrees (3 C), according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Cerveny said the unusually high temperature was likely due, in the short term, to a rapid warming of air coming down from a mountain slope.
The previous record of 63.5 degrees (17.5 C) was set in March 2015.
Climate change is heating up Antarctica and the Arctic—the Earth's polar regions—faster than other regions of the planet.
The Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the globe, according to an annual report published in December by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There is no similar yearly report for Antarctica.
Global warming to blame for hottest day in Argentine Antarctica
At Argentina's Esperanza military base, pictured in March 2014, temperatures reached the highest on record
Global warming is to blame for Argentine Antarctica recording its hottest day since readings began, Greenpeace said on Friday.
Temperatures climbed to 18.3 degrees Celsius (64.9 degrees Fahrenheit) at midday Thursday at the research station Esperanza base, the highest temperature on record since 1961, according to the National Meteorological Service.
The previous record stood at 17.5 degrees on March 24, 2015.
The new record is "of course shocking but unfortunately not surprising because Antarctica is warming up with the rest of the planet," said Frida Bengtsson, marine environment specialist for Greenpeace, in a statement.
At Marambio, another Argentine base in Antarctica, temperatures reached 14.1 degrees Celsius on Thursday, the hottest temperature for a day in February since 1971.
The news comes after a decade of record temperatures on the planet and a 2019 that was the second hottest year since registers have been kept.
And the new decade has begun along the same tendency, with last month the hottest January on record.
The effects of global warming have already seen ocean levels rise due to melting ice caps.
The two largest ice caps on the planet, in Antarctica and Greenland, have already lost an average of a combined 430 billion tons a year since 2006.
According to UN climate experts, the oceans rose 15 centimeters during the 20th century.
It's a threat to coastal towns and small islands the world over.
One of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is the Thwaites glacier, which is the size of Britain.
Scientists say that if it melted it would raise sea levels by 65 centimeters.
"Over the last 30 years, the amount of ice melting off Thwaites and adjacent glaciers has nearly doubled," said the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration group of scientists in a statement.
Argentina has had a presence in Antarctica for the past 114 years, including several scientific research bases, and is also a signatory of the Antarctic Treaty, which came into force in June 1961 and prohibits any militarization of the continent.
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