In the name of climate #19: the unprecedented heat wave in Antarctica

As polar meteorologists have also reported, unprecedented high temperatures were recorded in March in eastern Antarctica. Typically, the average temperature in that area of the continent in March is around -53°C, but on Friday, March 18, the Vostok research base recorded a high temperature of -17.7°C.

Since temperature measurements began in Antarctica some 60 years ago, a temperature that high has never been recorded: the previous highest record for the month of March, measured in 1967, was -32°C. In the Italian-French Concordia station, just over 500 kilometres away from the Vostok base, a temperature of -11.8°C was measured, compared to the average high in March, which is -48.7°C, registered in the same place.

According to the Climate Reanalyzer website of the University of Maine, on Friday 18 March the temperature in Antarctica was about 4.8°C higher than the average for the period between 1979 and 2000. The figure is even more surprising if we consider that at this time of year autumn begins in Antarctica and temperatures are expected to drop, not rise.

«This meteorological event is unprecedented and distorts our expectations of the Antarctic climate system», said Jonathan Wille, a polar meteorology researcher at the University of Grenoble, speaking to the Washington Post. Also: the journalist and climatologist Stefano Di Battista observed that «the Antarctic climatology has been rewritten». At the moment this increase in temperature must however be seen as an unusual meteorological event: it is still too early to tell whether the case in question is due - in whole or in part - to climate change; studies on climate models will determine if this is the case, in the near future and with precision.