Climate Change in Antarctica
A closer look at conditions in our Southernmost continent and how they are being impacted by climate change
“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,”
At a glance:
Weather data from some of Antarctica’s research stations has revealed unprecedented cold conditions, with months and even entire seasons breaking all-time cold records in recent months.
A recently published NASA study shows that Antarctica has been accumulating land ice, in direct contrast to IPCC claims of net ice losses from the continent.
A recent article in The Guardian has reported on unprecedented losses of sea ice around the continent.
There does seem to be some consensus among these recent studies that the melting of glaciers in Antarctica is not contributing to global sea-level rises.
The first three sections in this post look at research station temperature data and some recent land and sea ice studies.
Or feel free to skip to my quick summary and closing remarks at the end.
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1. Temperature Data
Summer at the South Pole!
A few weeks ago I posted some stats on LinkedIn showing Antarctica’s coldest January temperatures:
Below I pick out a few of the outstanding cold weather conditions measured at some of the main Antarctic scientific research stations.
South Pole Station
Following on from the international South Pole Station’s coldest ever coreless winter period in 2022, the research station posted its second coldest ever 4-month summer period, consisting of:
November 2022; -40.4°C - coldest since 1987
December 2022; -29.1°C - coldest since 2006
January 2023; -31.3°C - coldest since 1995
February 2023; -41.1°C - 0.7°C below the norm.
Equally as impressive, February at the South Pole Station averaged -41.1°C which is -0.7°C below the multi-decadal baseline.
Concordia
The French-Italian research station of Concordia posted the continents coldest January temperature this year, continuing a chronological trend that seems to be emerging:
January 31 2023; -51.2
January 30 2023; -48.5
January 30 2022; -48.5
January 31 2012; -48.3
January 28 2012; -48.0
Vostok
At the Russian Vostok Station, the month of December had an average -34.1°C, the second-coldest December month of the year since records began (the coldest being December 1999).
On Jan 29, the Vostok Station posted a staggering -48.7°C making it the station’s coldest-ever summer temperature since it opened back in 1957.
2. Land Ice Gains
A recent NASA study concluded that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.
Put simply, Antarctic land ice is growing!
The research, summarized in the Antarctica Journal, challenges the conclusions of other studies including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is, overall, losing land ice.
While in East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica land ice is growing, this has been offset to some extent by losses in the Antarctic Peninsula and regions of West Antarctica.
Referring to the disagreement with the IPCC conclusions, a lead author of the study from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center stated:
‘‘Our main disagreement [with the IPCC report] is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica — there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.”
“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,”
Jay Zwally, NASA
3. Sea Ice Losses
A recent The Guardian story highlighted decreasing amounts of Antarctic sea ice, stating that after four decades of satellite observations:
‘there has never been less ice around the continent than there was last week’
Dr Will Hobbs, an Antarctic sea ice expert at the University of Tasmania with the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership was quoted as saying:
“We are seeing less ice everywhere. It’s a circumpolar event.”
In February this year, the previous low sea ice record set a year earlier had been broken reaching a new record low of 1.79 million square kilometers.
While melting sea ice does not directly raise sea levels because it is already floating in and therefore displacing the surrounding water, the concern are the knock-on effects that can lead to land-based run-off into the sea.
Sea ice helps to buffer the effect of storms on coastal ice shelves which themselves stabilize the massive ice sheets and glaciers that site behind them on land. Less sea ice weakens this protection, leaving them vulnerable to erosion and discharge into the sea.
Dr Ted Scambos at the University of Colorado Boulder is quoted as stating that the downturn in Antarctic sea ice;
“is causing the scientific community to wonder if there’s a process that’s related to global climate change”
Antarctica’s sea ice had, on average, ‘slightly increased until a crash in 2016’. If Dr Scambos’ suspicions are true, the effects of climate change only started recently, which would seem to me to be a little difficult to justify.
4. In Summary…
From looking at recent meteorological data and some of the current literature regarding climate-related processes in Antarctica, we can see that the situation is far from simple, with disagreement among climate scientists.
Met data has been showing unprecedented cold conditions in recent months - the coldest on record in many instances. Those of you that read my seasonal weather reviews may have noticed Antarctica’s record-breaking cold conditions mentioned numerous times since I started writing them a couple of years ago.
Land ice seems to be increasing on the continent, overall. There are some areas that are showing land ice losses, notably on the Antarctic Peninsular and parts of Western Antarctica.
Sea ice surrounding the continent has been reducing for the last few years. While this may sound like a symptom of warming seas, there is a theory that suggests that more ice forms during (relatively) warmer conditions due to there being more freshwater run-off from melting glaciers, providing a source of more readily freezable water when it reaches the sea.
And somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, is that global sea levels do not appear to be increasing due to any climate-related process in Antarctica. On the contrary, sea levels may in fact be falling as a result of Antarctic conditions.
That’s all for now..!
If you take one thing away it’s that the situation is never as simple as it may at first appear, with studies and the ‘experts’ behind them often appearing to contradict each other.
Whatever is happening at our fascinating Southern-most continent, it’s far from ‘settled science’ that global warming is going to turn the penguins frozen home into a tropical paradise anytime soon!
-T