4th-Wettest Day In Antarctica In 40 Yrs Of Records; Concordia Station Hit Highest Temp In Any Month
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Satellite imagery and computer models indicate significant snow, rain and melting also occurred. During the heat wave, the ice sheet experienced its fourth-wettest day in more than four decades, according to the Modèle Atmosphérique Régionale (MAR), a regional climate model that studies the melting of the polar ice caps.
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Radar imagery shows snow on the surface darkening on March 18 near Totten Glacier from the unusually high temperatures. (European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-1 imagery)
“Usually, the climate of Antarctica is too cold to have significant accumulation of snow and most of liquid water from melt or rainfall is absorbed by the snowpack and refreezes,” Xavier Fettweis, a climate scientist from the University of Liège who coordinates the development of MAR, wrote in an email. Yet, Fettweis said snowfall led to the ice sheet gaining 69 gigatons of mass from March 16 to 18, three times the usual rate.
The MAR indicates the heaviest precipitation occurred near the coast, with rainfall accumulation of more than an inch, or 50 millimeters. (Note that these values are not direct measurements but modeled quantities based on atmospheric conditions.) “That would be tremendous for that area,” said Jonathan Wille, a researcher studying polar meteorology at Grenoble Alpes University in France. “It doesn’t even rain here almost ever. Normally they have like a few millimeters of rain per year. And it’s March — it should be getting cold.”
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The Russian meteorological observatory Vostok — about 808 miles from the South Pole and 11,444 feet above sea level — hit 0.1 degrees (minus-17.7 Celsius) on March 18. The record high shattered the monthly record of minus-26.7 (minus-32.6 Celsius) set on March 4, 1967. The average high temperature at the station is around minus-63 (minus-53 Celsius) in March. The Concordia Research Station, about 350 miles from Vostok, hit its highest temperature on record for any month at 10 degrees (minus-12.2 Celsius). Typical high temperatures in March hover around minus-56 (minus-48.7 Celsius). The previous all-time high temperature was 7.34 degrees (minus-13.7 Celsius) on Dec. 17, 2016.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/03/22/antarctica-heat-record-melt-climate/