Nimos
Well-Known Member
Found this article on CNN (Link to the whole article in the bottom)
The South Pole has been warming at more than three times the global average over the past 30 years, a new study has found. That could have huge implications for the melting of Antarctic ice sheets, marine life in the region and the rising of global sea levels.
They found that between 1989 and 2018, the South Pole had warmed by about 1.8 degrees Celsius over the past 30 years at a rate of +0.6 °C per decade -- three times the global average.
"It is wild. It is the most remote place on the planet. The significance is how extreme temperatures swing and shift over the Antarctic interior, and the mechanisms that drive them are linked 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) north of the continent on the tropical Pacific," Clem said.
Hotter temperatures have been recorded at other parts of Antarctica in recent years and the warming has serious global consequences, especially for the millions of people living on the world's coasts who are vulnerable to sea level rise.
Antarctica's ice sheet contains enough water to raise global sea levels by nearly 200 feet, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Ice loss in the region has also been accelerating at an alarming rate over the past few decades. In the past 22 years, one giant glacier in East Antarctica has retreated almost three miles.
While the South Pole remains below freezing and is likely to stay that way, Clem said that the warming trend seen at the Pole is linked to what we're seeing on the coast and the Antarctic Peninsula.
The warming "starts from the coast and works its way inland," Clem said.
"As you move closer to the coast, where the warming is coming in, you'll start to see more impacts. As you reach that point near the freezing point you start to get melting. Or you melt the sea ice and you start to warm the ocean in the Weddell Sea and that affects life in that area," he said.
"Almost anywhere else on Earth, if you had 1.8C of warming over 30 years this would be off the charts." Clem said.
But the result was not 100%. So there is a chance that warming at the South Pole could have occurred through natural processes only, according to Clem -- but it's a tiny one.
The South Pole has been warming three times the global average over the past 30 years, study says - CNN
If this is true, which I see no reason for why it shouldn't be, then 30 years is not a long time. I doubt that humans doing things the way we do, and being so slow at changing our ways, are close to being too late. We will need the next 50 years having to discuss what to do, who to blame, before we see any significant changes to how we do things. I doubt the ice is going to wait for that.
The South Pole has been warming at more than three times the global average over the past 30 years, a new study has found. That could have huge implications for the melting of Antarctic ice sheets, marine life in the region and the rising of global sea levels.
They found that between 1989 and 2018, the South Pole had warmed by about 1.8 degrees Celsius over the past 30 years at a rate of +0.6 °C per decade -- three times the global average.
"It is wild. It is the most remote place on the planet. The significance is how extreme temperatures swing and shift over the Antarctic interior, and the mechanisms that drive them are linked 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) north of the continent on the tropical Pacific," Clem said.
Hotter temperatures have been recorded at other parts of Antarctica in recent years and the warming has serious global consequences, especially for the millions of people living on the world's coasts who are vulnerable to sea level rise.
Antarctica's ice sheet contains enough water to raise global sea levels by nearly 200 feet, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Ice loss in the region has also been accelerating at an alarming rate over the past few decades. In the past 22 years, one giant glacier in East Antarctica has retreated almost three miles.
While the South Pole remains below freezing and is likely to stay that way, Clem said that the warming trend seen at the Pole is linked to what we're seeing on the coast and the Antarctic Peninsula.
The warming "starts from the coast and works its way inland," Clem said.
"As you move closer to the coast, where the warming is coming in, you'll start to see more impacts. As you reach that point near the freezing point you start to get melting. Or you melt the sea ice and you start to warm the ocean in the Weddell Sea and that affects life in that area," he said.
"Almost anywhere else on Earth, if you had 1.8C of warming over 30 years this would be off the charts." Clem said.
But the result was not 100%. So there is a chance that warming at the South Pole could have occurred through natural processes only, according to Clem -- but it's a tiny one.
The South Pole has been warming three times the global average over the past 30 years, study says - CNN
If this is true, which I see no reason for why it shouldn't be, then 30 years is not a long time. I doubt that humans doing things the way we do, and being so slow at changing our ways, are close to being too late. We will need the next 50 years having to discuss what to do, who to blame, before we see any significant changes to how we do things. I doubt the ice is going to wait for that.
