On March 18, 2022, scientists at the Concordia research station in the east Antarctic recorded the largest spike in temperature ever recorded with the region experiencing a rise of 38.5C above its seasonal average.
Unfortunately, it’s not an isolated event with an increasing number of meteorologic anomalies being reported on the continent in the past two years.
The sea level rise map that was linked is interesting, I propose Hamilton to be the new international airport since both Auckland and Wellington’s will be underwater
Admittedly I’ve only read one article on it and nothing further, but how does a near 40 deg jump even happen. It’s honestly gone straight past mind boggling and I can’t really fathom it, if that makes sense.
This article illustrated it a bit.
Scientists say an increasing amount of warm and humid air from lower latitudes are being pushed into the continent, which are to blame for the dramatic temperature rise.
But this also implies the regional jet stream has been weak enough to allow that to happen.
One big main issue of climate change: exacerbation of local, regional, global meteorological / oceanographic systems.
- Ice is melting, reducing albedo, allowing for more heating and heat retention (water is dark, absorbs heat).
- Stronger low and high pressure systems leading to longer and more sustained regional weather extremes.
- Ocean water thermal / salt systems losing stability, and causing heat transfer issues.
And on and on.
If you look at prehistoric temperatures there was a time before humanity where the climate did massive swings up and down. Apparently there are some feedback effects which can cause these kinds of swings.
If this happens again it’s the end of not only humanity but probably most other animals and plants on the planet too.
So when this happened it looks like the record high temp was -11.5C, whereas it’s normally around -49C.
The article is light on details except:
Scientists say an increasing amount of warm and humid air from lower latitudes are being pushed into the continent, which are to blame for the dramatic temperature rise.
From what I can gather there was a heat wave in eastern Antarctica in March 2022
I wonder what the timeframe were talking of here. As in, was it a heatwave for a day, month, etc.
Regardless, it’s quite amazingly shocking. They should use that number as part of some campaign, it’s that shocking.
If west Antarctica’s ice sheets vanished completely, which is possible in the next few decades, it would see sea levels rise by 5 metres, according to a 2021 report by the UN’s climate body - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
So I knew is was bad, but I’m not sure it really clicked that we are looking at a 5m sea rise in the reasonably near future…
Yeah, got caught out by that time frame.
I like to think I’m quite concious of the environment and try to make frequent decisions during day to day life to “minimize” my impact, but in the back of my mind, I always had the “at least it shouldn’t get truly terrifying anytime in my useful life time” as sort of a coping mechanism to all the doom and gloom. Now I’m not so sure of that lol.
Yeah it’s always been sold as a problem for the next generation, take action now to make a better world for your grandkids. Turns out our lack of action has big ramifications in our lifetime.
I also like to try to minimise my impact, and try to be part of the solution not part of the problem, but I’m under no illusions that anything short of government action will make the difference we need.
And it’s so frustrating that governments around the world seem to not care…
Congratulations, if your gen x or younger your part of the next generation they were talking about.
I’m starting to think the only way climate change will be taken as seriously as it should be is for something so catastrophic and undeniable as a sea level rise of metres to happen.
Thank god we elected a right wing government who is going to roll back all efforts to combat climate change eh?
