The two poles smash heat records

Both poles are heating up at an alarming rate. Both the North and the South have literally just smashed heat records, at 40 and 30 degrees above the usual temperatures at this time of year. An anomaly that worries many scientists. Are the effects of climate change happening faster than expected?

Eric-Pierre Champagne
The Press

– 11.5℃

This is the new record recorded in Antarctica on March 18 at the Concordia research station. A temperature of more than 40 degrees above seasonal norms. The old record dated from December 17, 2016, at -13.7 ℃, at this Franco-Italian base located at an altitude of 3223 m on the Antarctic plateau.

+3.9℃

At the Norwegian weather station in Hopen, located in the Svalbard archipelago, a record high of 3.9℃ was recorded on March 15, about 30 degrees above normal for this time of year.

Both poles heat up fast

The two poles are warming three times faster than the rest of the planet. Last Friday, the average temperature in Antarctica was 4.8℃ higher than the averages recorded between 1979 and 2000. At the other end of the globe, the average temperature in the Arctic was 3.3℃ higher, still in comparison with the same reference period.

Ice is melting in Antarctica

At the end of February, the American research center National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that the Antarctic sea ice had reached its smallest area recorded since 1979, at less than 2 million square kilometers.

And in the Arctic too…

For the month of February, we also recorded an average volume of ice in the Arctic of 19,700 m^⁠3i.e. at 9^and rank of the smallest since this data is listed.

What will be the consequences ?

It is difficult to accurately predict the consequences of such anomalies. But scientists are concerned about seeing these temperature increases at this time of year, particularly at the South Pole. “Temperatures currently observed in parts of Antarctica would be abnormally high during the summer, and it is decidedly not summer there,” climate scientist Zeke Hausfather wrote on Twitter.

A vicious circle

Overall, the decrease in ice cover is very bad news for the climate. This allows the sun’s rays to be reflected. Less ice means that the sea then absorbs the heat of the sun, which aggravates global warming, leading to an acceleration of the melting of the ice. This is one of the breaking points to avoid, scientists have been saying for many years.

The “Glacier of the Apocalypse”

The warming of the poles obviously makes us fear the worst for the melting of the ice covering these two regions. At the beginning of January, a team of around thirty scientists set sail for Antarctica. Their objective ? Study the Thwaites Glacier, nicknamed the “Apocaplypse Glacier”. If it were to disappear, this glacier, which is the size of Florida, could alone raise the level of the oceans by 65 cm. Scientists have indeed found that Thwaites is collapsing faster than expected, which can also have unfortunate consequences for the entire Antarctic continent.

Another “alert” from the IPCC

In its latest report, unveiled on February 28, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that “the extent and magnitude of the impacts of climate change are greater” than previously estimated. in previous reviews. The report was prepared by 270 experts and scientists from 67 countries.

With Agence France-Presse