It has been much warmer than normal in recent days in both the Arctic and Antarctica. Weather stations in Antarctica recorded record temperatures: in some areas it was 40 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year. Parts of the Arctic were 30 degrees warmer than normal.
In the Antarctic town of Vostok, located at nearly 3,500 meters altitude, it was an unusually high -17.7 degrees Celsius on Friday. On the coast, temperatures at 7 degrees were well above freezing, reports The Washington Post. That while summer in the southern hemisphere is almost over, and temperatures in Antarctica should therefore be dropping.
Temperatures were measured around freezing at the North Pole last week. At the end of winter and the beginning of spring, temperatures are normally much lower there, around -25 degrees.
‘Opposing Seasons’
It is remarkable that it is so hot at both poles at the same time. “These are opposite seasons. We never see the North Pole and the South Pole melt at the same time,” American ice scientist Walt Meier told The Associated Press news agency. “This is very exceptional”, NOS weather forecaster Gerrit Hiemstra also says.
The extremely high temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctica are caused by low pressure areas. In the Arctic, a low-pressure area near the east of Canada and the United States pushes warm air from the south to the north. And near Antarctica is a series of low pressure areas that allow warm air to flow over much of the continent.
Never seen so little sea ice
The result of the high temperatures is that relatively much ice is melting. At the North Pole, the ice has been melting since February, which normally doesn’t start until mid-March.
Since the first measurement in 1979, there has never been so little sea ice in Antarctica at the end of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. There is now less than 2 million square kilometers of ice around the continent. Much of the ice will grow back in the coming months as autumn and winter turn into fall and winter in the southern hemisphere.
Scientists aren’t entirely sure that the unusually high temperatures are due to climate change. This is easier to determine if these high temperatures occur more often at the poles and there is therefore a trend. “But this would not have happened without climate change,” says Hiemstra.
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