. On March 18, 2022, scientists at the Concordia research station on the east Antarctic plateau recorded the largest jump in temperature ever measured at a meteorological facility anywhere on Earth. According to their instruments, the temperature outside that day was 38.5º C above its seasonal average — a world record. Those findings are included in a paper that was published last week in theby a team of scientists led by Will Hobbs of the University of Tasmania.
Identifying whether a regime shift has occurred is difficult without a complete understanding of the physical mechanism of change. However, the statistical changes that we demonstrate , as well as the increased spatial coherence noted by previous research, are indicators based on dynamical systems theory of an abrupt critical transition. Thus, our analysis is further evidence in support of a changed Antarctic sea ice system.
“There’s sea level rise, coastal inundation, increased floods and drought cycles, bleached corals, intensification of cyclones, ecological impacts, melting of ice at higher latitudes in the coastal margins — that gives us a double whammy on sea level rise. The oceans have stored the problem but it’s coming back to bite us.” Coming back to bite us means an imminent shift from linear changes in the ocean to non-linear changes on the horizon.
After examining recent changes in sea ice coverage in Antarctica, the scientists concluded there had been an “abrupt critical transition” in the continent’s climate that could have repercussions for both local Antarctic ecosystems and the global climate system. “The extreme lows in Antarctic sea ice have led researchers to suggest that a regime shift is under way in the Southern Ocean, and we found multiple lines of evidence that support such a shift to a new sea ice state,” said Will Hobbs.
That’s not going to happen anytime soon. Antarctica’s ice sheet covers 14 million square kilometers , which is roughly the area of the United States and Mexico combined. It contains about 30 million cubic kilometers of ice — which represents about 60% of the world’s fresh water. This vast covering hides a mountain range that is nearly as high as the Alps, so it will take a very long time for that to melt completely, say scientists.
More than 40 nations are signatories of the Antarctic Treaty’s environmental protocol, which is supposed to shield it from a host of different threats, with habitat degradation being one of the most important. The fact that the continent is now undergoing alarming shifts in its ice covering, eco-systems, and climate is a clear sign that this protection is no longer being provided. “The cause of this ecological and meteorological change lies outside the continent,” added Siegert.