If these values are confirmed, it will become an absolute temperature record for the icy continent.
February, a research station on Seymour Island off the Antarctic Peninsula recorded a temperature of 20.75 degrees Celsius. This was announced by Márcio Rocha Francelino, professor at the Federal University of Vicosa in Brazil.
The temperature of 20.75 degrees is a significant increase over the temperature of 19.8 degrees Celsius, which was recorded by the Esperanza research base on February 6. The World Meteorological Organization is now testing these figures to finally establish whether they really represent the record high temperatures recorded in Antarctica.
This new data was obtained by a research station, which has been operating there for 12 years and which is used primarily to observe changes in permafrost. According to Francelino, the temperature sensor is located in an open and flat area, where there are no bumps or obstacles.
Randy Cerveny, a meteorologist at Arizona State University who is testing such readings for the World Meteorological Organization, previously called the temperature readings at Esperanza station "plausible." On Thursday, February 13, he said the organization is checking for new messages, but called for such high numbers to be treated with caution.
Many questions will need to be answered before 20.75 degrees can be recognized as the record high temperature recorded on the planet's coldest continent, he said. “We will critically evaluate the metadata of this station (how long it has been running, how accurate was the data transmitted to it, what instruments are used to take measurements, when was the last time they were calibrated, and so on),” he wrote in his email. "All these nuances are of great importance for verifying the accuracy of the observations."
The station that recorded the temperature record is one of 26 research stations currently operating in Antarctica, Francelino said.
The unusually high temperature in Antarctica was first reported by The Guardian, which described it as a new record. But Jefferson Cardia Simões, glacier specialist at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and vice president of the Scientific Committee for Antarctica Studies, does not believe that these readings will meet the requirements of the World Meteorological Organization, which is necessary for the official registration of the temperature record.
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Nevertheless, he believes it is important to confirm the fact of the "heat wave" that was observed in the northernmost part of Antarctica last week. Both temperature peaks were recorded in the region of Antarctica that is located closest to South America (the coldest is the interior of this continent).
“This is a very important measurement result, but the World Meteorological Organization does not recognize it as a record because it was not obtained at a standard weather station that has been operating for a long time,” he wrote in an e-mail. He noted that one of the reasons an organization is likely to refuse to take these numbers into account may be the height of the sensor to measure temperature. At most stations, such measurements are carried out at a height of 2 meters, and in this case the sensor was installed at a height of 1.5 meters. Temperatures can be higher when measured closer to the ground.
According to Serveni, the instructions of the World Meteorological Organization allow taking measurements taken at a height of 1.5 meters, and in this case the short life of the station may become the main obstacle.
On February 6, the Seymour Island station recorded a temperature of 16.4 degrees Celsius, Francelino said, while the Argentine station Esperanza recorded 18.3 degrees Celsius.
In his opinion, these indicators are "amazing" in themselves. Then, on February 9, the Brazilian station on Seymour Island recorded a temperature of 19.38 degrees Celsius, and at the same time the permafrost station recorded a value of 20.75 degrees.
“I don’t know to what extent Esperanza or Brazilian stations are following the standards of the World Meteorological Organization, but the fact that they are recorded is something that needs to be scrutinized,” Francelino said. The unusually warm weather was two weeks For example, on February 10, the temperature reached 16 degrees Celsius.
According to forecasts made with the help of computer simulations, on February 7 and 9, the temperature in significant parts of the Antarctic Peninsula (the largest peninsula of continental Antarctica, extending to the north of its southern border by almost 1300 kilometers - ed.) Should have exceeded the norm by 6-12 degrees due to an unusually high pressure zone nearby.
But the average temperature in the first days of February at the Seymour Island station corresponded to the temperature norm and was 3.9 degrees Celsius.
“For 13 years of observations at the sites of our stations, the temperature of the permafrost has changed very little, remaining stable in most places and only in some places showing a slight upward trend. Only in one place we recorded a decrease in temperature,”he said.
This situation is in stark contrast to the rapid warming of vast areas of permafrost in the Arctic, the melting of which is likely to have already become an important factor accelerating the global warming process.
The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming places in the world. Most of the glaciers in this region are melting very quickly. According to a 2018 study, the collapse of the ice shelf off the Antarctic Peninsula and the acceleration of the movement of the glacier in the sea led to an acceleration in the process of ice cover reduction in the region: from 1992 to 2017, it is declining annually by 25 billion tons.
The region has seen the sudden breakdowns of two ice shelves, the Larsen Ice Shelf in 2002 and the Wilkins Ice Shelf in 2008. The rapid warming in this region has forced scientists to watch what is happening more closely, because the process of decreasing ice cover now covers almost the entire continent.
Andrew Freedman