‘Simply mind-boggling’: world record temperature jump in Antarctic raises fears of catastrophe
On 18 March, 2022, scientists at the Concordia research station on the #east#Antarctic#plateau documented a remarkable event.
They recorded 💥the #largest#jump in #temperature ever measured at a meteorological centre on Earth. 💥
According to their instruments, the region that day experienced a rise of 38.5C above its seasonal average: a world record.
This startling leap
– in the coldest place on the planet
– left polar researchers struggling for words to describe it.
“It is simply mind-boggling,” said Prof Michael Meredith, science leader at the British Antarctic Survey.
“In sub-zero temperatures such a massive leap is tolerable but if we had a 40C rise in the UK now that would take temperatures for a spring day to over 50C – and that would be deadly for the population.”
This amazement was shared by glaciologist Prof Martin Siegert, of the University of Exeter.
“No one in our community thought that anything like this could ever happen. It is extraordinary and a real concern,” he told the Observer.
“We are now having to wrestle with something that is completely unprecedented.”
Poleward winds, which previously made few inroads into the atmosphere above Antarctica, are now carrying more and more warm, moist air from lower latitudes
– including Australia
– deep into the continent, say scientists,
and these have been blamed for the dramatic polar “heatwave” that hit Concordia.
Exactly why these currents are now able to plunge so deep into the continent’s air space is not yet clear, however.
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@TheMetalDog Sweet jeepers! I love me some DLR, but Dave... buddy... this is pretty rough. I wonder if he was going for more of a swing or jazz style of singing? It just didn't hit for me. Oh well...
#NowPlaying is that synth laden hit album 1984 by Van Halen. Oddly, some of my favourite songs from VH are on this record (Drop Dead Legs, Hot For Teacher, I'll Wait, Panama) even though I'm not a big synth guy. From what I understand, EVH really pushed for it in order to expand VH's boundaries and audience against the rest of the band's wishes (especially DLR). It worked! 1984 was a smash hit.