Eastern Antarctica sees record temperatures 70 degrees above normal

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/03/18/antarctica-heat-wave-climate-change/

by elsewhen • 4 years ago

219 84 4 years ago

washingtonpost.com

the_alchemist• 4 years ago

Without paywall on archive.org https://web.archive.org/web/20220319112653/https://www.washi...

neonate• 4 years ago

https://archive.is/WHpV1

herpderperator• 4 years ago

  This site can't provide a secure connection
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ev1• 4 years ago

They are intentionally blocking you.

joecool1029• 4 years ago

The site is fine. Cloudflare's DNS is blocked by it, use another provider. For more context: https://community.cloudflare.com/t/archive-today-does-not-re...

stjohnswarts• 4 years ago

Something's wrong between your computer and the site. It's fine here.

singularity2001• 4 years ago

that is 39 Celsius above minimum average, or 27 Celsius on the conservative side:

Instead of temperatures being minus-50 or minus-60 degrees (minus-45 or minus-51 Celsius), they’ve been closer to zero or 10 degrees (minus-18 Celsius or minus-12 Celsius)

toxik2• 4 years ago

Without knowing the variance, that really says nothing.

lamontcg• 4 years ago

"five standard deviations above normal." -- from the article

tejohnso2• 4 years ago

Here's what it says according to various researchers, per the article:

“This event is completely unprecedented and upended our expectations about the Antarctic climate system"

“Antarctic climatology has been rewritten,”

"Concordia -18.0 °C unthinkable value in mid-March "

And then for something less extreme:

“[W]e can’t tell whether this is going to be a new trend or is just an oddity that occurs occasionally on a most fascinating continent,”

Personally, I think it's important to pay attention when experts in the field say things like unprecedented and unthinkable on the record. Especially given scientists have a tendency to be more conservative. I think it's a pretty shallow dismissal to say that it really says nothing when experts are saying the opposite.

bruce343434• 4 years ago

So what will be the consequences of this? Article makes it clear this is not normal, but doesn't really say much else.

pil0u2• 4 years ago

I'd argue that such event is the consequences.

ianai4• 4 years ago

And melting all that ice would have drastic effects on the oceans. Current changes, sea level rises, etc. we probably can only estimate at the lower range of consequences.

elif• 4 years ago

Accelerated calving, meltwater flows, unsafe ice conditions for researchers would be some of the immediate consequences, in addition to the obvious long-term atmospheric and oceanic implications resulting from ice volume loss.

fallingknife• 4 years ago

It's still below freezing. It's just supposed to be way colder than that.

kadoban5• 4 years ago

Nobody really knows, and it's too late to do anything real about it. Fun times.

einpoklum• 4 years ago

It is too late to do something about what happens _today_, it is not too late to do something about what is now likely to happen in a decade, and two, and three.

Your comment sounds like on of the stages of the "four stage strategy" from Yes Minister:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak

originally about why the UK doesn't help foreign nations in an inconvenient crisis.

pil0u2• 4 years ago

That is wrong on many levels. Such nihilist position does not help the millions of people leading concrete actions on different scales.

You are wrong, it's not too late to change how we behave regarding climate and such way of thinking is unlikely to induce the required actions.

formvoltron• 4 years ago

I was told that I could use my SUV up until the problems start, and then I could just start taking the bus to solve it.

Findecanor• 4 years ago

Climate change is not boolean. It is not a question of damage or not damage.

It is a question of how much damage.

justanother• 4 years ago

The Elder Things will awaken and humanity will have to choose a side between the Elders and the Shoggoths.

ben_w• 4 years ago

The equivalent sea level rise numbers here are larger than I was expecting, but if temperatures are regularly above melting (are they? IDK from the article), one should expect something like this: https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-...

luxuryballs• 4 years ago

Nothing long term, it will most likely swing back the other way in a decade or two just like it has done for all of recorded history, oscillating back and forth like a global thermal tide.

Kim_Bruning• 4 years ago

For that to be true, it either should have swung back already, or at least it needs to do so very VERY soon.

https://xkcd.com/1732/

toss1• 4 years ago

If it is just some kind of random anomaly, like a rogue wave, not much beyond an odd layer in the glacial ice pack.

The problem is that this is most definitely not an anomaly, but a point in a trend of massive climate change. There are many predictions of the consequences, and as far as I can tell, the actual data are running ahead of the most serious predictions. Seems like just another data point.

Also to consider is the multiplier effects of higher temperatures at high latitudes, which is already starting to release gigatons of methane stored in the permafrost, and methane has about 22X the warming effect of carbon dioxide. Not the kind of feedback loop we want to allow to run away.

tejohnso2• 4 years ago

One of the major concerns, alluded to in the article, is the destabilization of the Thwaites. If that thing goes, we're done.

netsharc• 4 years ago

Hah, that article is a mess of temperature standards as well as mixing up delta Fahrenheit to delta Celsius vs Fahrenheit to Celsius equivalents (delta 18 F is delta 10 C, whereas the temperature 18 F is -7.78 C).

It seems they got it all right, better than some other reports where they mix up the 2. Imagine seeing "It's 18 degrees warmer in Fahrenheit, (that's -7.78 degrees warmer in Celcius)."

mark-r• 4 years ago

The funny thing is that converting changes in temperature is even easier than converting actual temperature. There's no offset to apply, which has the nice side effect that the signs are never different.

lixtra• 4 years ago

This event is completely unprecedented and upended our expectations about the Antarctic climate system

While this is more about weather than climate it shows how much is still left to be understood.

sublimefire• 4 years ago

I found it a bit clickbaity. The title is correct to the letter but not really to the spirit, because down at the bottom there is:

Temperatures are known to vary wildly over Antarctica, and massive swings are common. Contrasting with this warm spell over eastern Antarctica, the South Pole observed just observed its coldest April to September period on record last year, with an average temperature of minus-78 degrees (minus-61 Celsius).

But to be sure "The heat dome was exceptionally intense, five standard deviations above normal" is nuts.

We should rename Antarctica to something like "Crazy continent".

ianai4• 4 years ago

Uhh last I checked 5 standard deviations was the definition of a statistically significant difference.

To me it sounds like a realization that climate changes will have drastic and possibly chaotic effects.

teawrecks• 4 years ago

I think you're hearing "massive swings" and jumping to the conclusion that 5 std dev is somehow normal-ish behavior for the region. It's not. At all. By definition.

yodon• 4 years ago

When you start calling five sigma events "click-baity" you may find others asking legitimate questions about your ability to assess what is significant.

Encountering a headline that tries to get people to read the article is a roughly zero-sigma event. That's the purpose of a headline, and has been for about 150 years. Retailers also sell things for more than they paid for them and supply chains are hard. If you can understand what a five sigma event is, you can understand these things as well.

spacemanmatt2• 4 years ago

The climate is the weather, on average. It's not wrong to call this climate change.

beeboop• 4 years ago

The earth is billions of years old. A single week of hot temperatures is not indicative of lasting, permanent change or even a change in a trend in terms of climate

jmkni• 4 years ago

70 degrees fahrenheit to be clear! Still a lot, wish they included that in the headline.

randcraw• 4 years ago

“Eastern Antarctica”. East of what? I have no idea where that is.

mistrial9• 4 years ago

draw an imaginary line from right around London, UK to the South Pole... imagine standing on that line, looking towards London from the sunny shores of the world's oldest forests under that ice, East is on your right side.. optional singing of national songs or worship according to your conscience

dwaltrip• 4 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Antarctica

digisign2• 4 years ago

Yes, the side facing Asia, rather than the side facing America. AKA the round side, not the peninsula side.

cpfohl• 4 years ago

At least it didn’t say “northern”…then I’d have been even more confused

tormock• 4 years ago

For 3 days

rthomas6• 4 years ago

That's 10° F (-12 C) instead of -60° F (-51 C), to be clear.

Eastern Antarctica sees record temperatures 70 degrees above normal

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