Antarctica feels the heat

RECORD HIGH: TEMPERATURE BREAKS 200C BARRIER FOR FIRST TIME

‘Reading has no meaning in terms of a climate-change trend,’ says scientist.

Scientists in Antarctica have recorded a new record temperature of 20.750C, breaking the barrier of 20 degrees for the first time on the continent, a researcher said Thursday.

“We’d never seen a temperature this high in Antarctica,” said Brazilian scientist Carlos Schaefer.

He cautioned that the reading, taken at a monitoring station on an island off the continent’s northern tip on 9 February, “has no meaning in terms of a climate-change trend”, because it is a one-off temperature and not part of a long-term data set.

But news that the icy continent is now recording temperatures in the relatively balmy 20s is likely to further fuel fears about the warming of the planet.

The reading was taken at Seymour Island, part of a chain off the peninsula that curves out from the northern tip of Antarctica. The island is home to Argentina’s Marambio research base.

Schaefer, a soil scientist, said the reading was taken as part of a 20-year-old research project on the impact of climate change on the region’s permafrost.

The previous high was in the 19s, he said.

“We can’t use this to anticipate climatic changes in the future. It’s a data point,” he said. “It’s simply a signal that something different is happening in that area.”

Still, he added, a temperature that high had never been registered in Antarctica.

Accelerating melt-off from glaciers and especially ice sheets in Antarctica is helping drive sea level rises, threatening coastal megacities and small island nations.

The news came a week after Argentina’s National Meteorological Service recorded the hottest day on record for Argentine Antarctica: 18.30C at midday at the

Esperanza base, located near the tip of the Antarctic peninsula.

The previous record stood at 17.5 degrees on 24 March, 2015, it said. It has been recording Antarctic temperatures since 1961.

The past decade has been the hottest on record, the United Nations (UN) said last month, with 2019 the second-hottest year ever, after 2016.

And 2020 looks set to continue the trend.

Last month was the hottest January on record, surpassing a previous high recorded in 2016, the US climate service said.

Land and ocean surface temperatures surpassed the 20th century January average of 120C, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

And they beat January 2016 – the hottest January since records began in 1880 – by a narrow 0.04 degrees.

The news confirms a similar finding by the European Union’s climate monitoring service last week, which used slightly different data.

Across much of Russia and parts of Scandinavia and eastern Canada, temperatures were nine degrees above average or higher.

Arctic sea ice coverage in January was 5.3% below the 1981–2010 average, while Antarctic coverage was 9.8% below.

Scientists agree overwhelmingly that manmade greenhouse gas emissions are a significant cause of the planetary warming we are currently experiencing.

The UN said last year these need to tumble 7.6% annually over the next decade to cap global warming at 1.50C above preindustrial levels, the aspirational goal set in the landmark Paris Agreement.

Current pledges to cut emissions put Earth on a path of several degrees of warming by the end of the century, which will make large swathes of the planet inhospitable for humans and many other species. – AFP

It’s a signal that something different is happening