The most extreme heat wave ever recorded took place in the coolest place on earth

The most extreme heat wave ever recorded took place in March last year. This month, temperatures in the affected region were almost 40 degrees above average – an extreme value that also surprised experts. And the previous record values ​​were surpassed by almost 20 degrees.

A heat wave of this magnitude did not go unnoticed, as evidenced by numerous media articles – Watson also reported on it. The fact that it didn’t dominate headlines nearly as much as this summer’s heat wave is because it took place in an uninhabited area: East Antarctica.

According to a study by a team led by climate scientist Edward Blanchard-Wrigglesworth of the University of Washington, the temperature in East Antarctica at the height of the heat wave was -15 degrees Celsius, although it should have been -54 degrees Celsius. According to the results of the study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, an anomalous air circulation pattern near Australia led to this unprecedented temperature increase.

This finding was actually known last year: the heat wave was the result of a very unusual weather event that caused strong northerly winds and introduced warm and moist air masses from Australia. Normally, the wind around Antarctica blows from west to east, isolating the continent from the warmer regions further north. Although the heat wave occurred shortly after February’s record sea ice minimum, anomalies in Southern Ocean surface temperatures had only a minimal impact on its magnitude.

Current research now comes to a different conclusion based on model simulations: global warming has worsened the heat wave by approximately 2 degrees Celsius. Moreover, according to the research team, future heat waves will be 5 to 6 degrees Celsius warmer by the end of the century due to past and future anthropogenic influences. This suggests that temperatures over the East Antarctic Ice Sheet may reach the melting point of ice during extreme heat waves.

The research also confirms what was suspected last year: last March’s temperature anomaly was in fact the strongest heat wave ever recorded locally.

Meteorologist Jonathan Wille of ETH Zurich, who was not involved in the study, told the Washington Post that it was possible that climate change could have affected atmospheric dynamics such as these tropical convective anomalies that led to the heat wave. However, it is very difficult to quantify these things. (mr)