March has been a bad month for Antarctica. Two recent studies show that the ice in the region appears to be melting much faster than anyone predicted and now bloggers with the Weather Underground report that the continent has just seen its warmest day on record, warm enough in fact to inspire a bit of jealousy in parts of North America.
On Tuesday, March 24, 2015 temperatures in the planet’s frozen southernmost continent reached a balmy 63.5 degrees Fahrenheit. That same day, New York saw a high temperature of 45 degrees, Chicago saw a high of 40, London saw a high of 51. Los Angeles, at 75 managed to beat Antarctica by almost 12 degrees.
The previous high temperature for Antarctica was 62.8 degrees, recorded on April 24, 1961.
The one day high and the new record might not have been very troubling if not for the fact that average temperatures in Antarctica have increased by five degrees over the last five decades.
The record may also seem especially ominous in light of the report from researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego that showed that the melting of the West Antarctic ice shelves has accelerated in the last decade.
“Eighteen percent over the course of 18 years is really a substantial change. Overall, we show not only the total ice shelf volume is decreasing, but we see an acceleration in the last decade,” said Fernando Paolo, a graduate student and one of the researchers of the study published in the journal Science, in a statement.
While the ice shelf doesn’t directly contribute to sea level rise, because it is already in the water, it does act as an important barrier against runoff from land based ice in Antarctica, such as the kind that occurs when the temperature there reaches 63.5 degrees.
That report, in turn, comes on the heels of another report earlier in the month that held very bad news for the East Antarctic.
That report, published in Nature Geoscience, showed that two seafloor gateways have formed beneath the Totten Glacier, allowing warm ocean water to reach the underside of the glacier and accelerate it’s melting.
“The catchment of Totten Glacier is covered by nearly 2½ miles of ice, filling a sub-ice basin reaching depths of at least one mile below sea level. We’ve basically shown that the submarine basins of East Antarctica have similar configurations and coastal vulnerabilities to the submarine basins of West Antarctica that we’re so worried about, and that warm ocean water, which is having a huge impact in West Antarctica, is affecting East Antarctica, as well,” said Donald Blankenship, of the University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Geophysics in a statement.
The Totten Glacier alone could increase global sea levels by as much as 11 feet if it were to melt completely.
While Antarctic temperatures at Esperanza Base, where the record high was recorded, have cooled off it has not dipped below freezing at that location in March.
