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CLIMATE WATCH - Temperatures for the entire month of July in Antarctica were 50°F above average, but it also experienced days when temperatures spiked up to 82°F above average. Yes, Antarctica is the world’s deepfreeze, and it is the dead of winter. What does this portend?
For starters, according to Michael Dukes, director of forecasting at MetDesk: “In Antarctica generally that kind of warming in the winter and continuing into summer months can lead to collapsing of the ice sheets.” (Source: Antarctica Temperatures Rise 10C Above Average in Near Record Heatwave, The Guardian, August 1, 2024)
Already, the summers of 2022 and 2023 saw unprecedented loss of Antarctic sea ice, which fell below 2 million square kilometers for the first time in the satellite record going back to 1979. Moreover, the year 2023 marked the 8th year of steep decline in sea ice. (Source: The Sleeping Giant Awakens, Climate Adaptation Center, May 21, 2024)
Antarctica is massive with total area as large as the US and Mexico combined and average ice thickness of 7,200 feet covering 98% of the continent which is 90% of the world’s ice and 70% of the fresh water of the world. There’s plenty for global warming to work with!
A primary ongoing concern is sea level rise. According to NASA, the rate of sea level rise has tripled in the 21st century.
What’s Next?
As for future expectations, there is a paleoclimate record that spells out what to expect:
“While today’s CO2-driven climate change scenario is unprecedented in human history, similar circumstances existed in the geological record that give us an idea of what to expect in the way of global sea level rise, and the process that will get us there. About 3.2 million years ago, during the Pliocene epoch, CO2 levels were about 400 ppm, and temperatures were 2-3°C above the “pre-industrial” temperatures of 1850-1880. At the same time, proxy data indicate global sea level was about 52 feet (within a 39-foot to 66-foot range) higher than today,” Ibid.
Maybe that is why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) strongly suggests keeping temperatures ideally below 1.5°C but not above 2.0°C pre-industrial, at all costs, or big trouble ensues. FYI- The IPCC looks for sustained temps above 1.5°C for several years to declare it official. And the world has already blown thru the 1.5°C barrier. Hopefully, that barrier eases up or stabilizes, but it requires cutting emissions almost immediately. Good luck with that. Global CO2 emissions are blasting off to the upside and not looking back.
Status of Atmospheric CO2 (Mauna Loa):
August 2, 2024 - 424.76 ppm
August 2, 2023 - 421.52 ppm
One-year change: 3.24 ppm
1960-year change: 0.71 ppm
CO2 affects temperature, which, according to Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), exceeded 1.5°C (2.7°F) above preindustrial for the first time in a 12-month period from February 2023 to January 2024. This is the level that 195 countries that signed onto the 2015 Paris Agreement agreed to stay below. Oops! It only took 9 years.
For the record: “The annual rate of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 60 years is about 100 times faster than previous natural increases, such as those that occurred at the end of the last ice age 11,000-17,000 years ago.” (Source: Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, Climate.gov, April 9, 2024)
That explains why it only took 9 years to hit 1.5C. Paleoclimate research of the above-mentioned Pliocene era shows a CO2 rate of increase of 0.02 ppm/annum in nature without humans around. But human influence has cranked it up to 2.80 ppm/annum (the 2023 full year rate) more than 100 times faster. Ipso facto, global warming is on a warpath.
According to Climate Adaptation Center: “Research supports the conclusion that by 2°C, virtually all of Greenland, most of West Antarctica and part of East Antarctica will be locked into long-term, irrevocable sea level rise, even if we succeed in drawing down temperatures at a later date. This is primarily because the warmer ocean will hold heat much longer than the atmosphere, and because of a number of self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms. As a result, it takes ice sheets much longer to grow back (tens of thousands of years) than to lose their ice,” Ibid.
All of which leads to when or if Antarctic sea ice will reach a serious breaking point. This challenging supposition has possibly been answered: “What happened in the winter of 2023 shocked scientists. ‘It was completely off the rails,’ according to Ted Scambos, senior researcher at Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). ‘Throughout the 2023 austral winter, sea ice was far below any previous winter extent in the 45-year satellite record.” (Source: Has Antarctic Sea Ice Hit a Breaking Point? Earth Data, National Snow and Ice Date Center, NSIDC, July 4, 2024)
Regime Shift in Antarctica
There’s clear evidence of what’s referred to as a “regime shift” in Antarctica, to wit: “Low sea ice extent once dominated certain areas, especially near the Antarctic Peninsula, but now all sectors surrounding Antarctica are responding together. Referred to as ‘spatial coherence,’ this is yet another sign that something is shifting for Antarctic sea ice, not just in some areas, not just in some years, but on larger scales and for longer periods. These Antarctic-wide sea ice changes, together with their greater variability and persistence, are three main factors that indicate a regime shift,” Ibid.
Additionally, sea ice is taking longer to recover from low extents and the recovered ice is thinner than decades earlier. All of which is attributable to a warming planet, with Antarctica experiencing bouts of excessively high anomalous temperatures more frequently, even during winter, but winter-time temperatures do remain below freezing. Nevertheless, the major concern is the warming trend and “regime shift,” moreover, what’s not seen is most concerning, for example: A headline in Live Science d/d May 21, 2024: Warm Ocean Water is Rushing Beneath Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday Glacier,’ Making Collapse More Likely.
Indeed, it would be enormously comforting if scientists could say for sure that the prospect of collapsing ice sheets and rapidly flowing glaciers on a major scale, taking sea levels far too high, flooding coastal cities, are not a concern this century, so, no sweat, don’t worry. But they can’t say that because climate change is moving much faster than scientists’ models predict. For example, nobody in 200o or 2010 or even a few years ago foresaw a major “Antarctic regime shift” or a 12-month consecutive increase of +1.5°C above pre-industrial by 2024. In point of fact, climate change is so far ahead of schedule that it’s ridiculous.
If climate models missed identifying the shockingly rapid onset of two extremely powerful climate-altering events, signaling deep trouble dead ahead, what are they missing now?
According to Sharon Stammerjohn, senior researcher at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, INSTAAR, University of Colorado, Boulder: “Conceptually, I just see this wall of heat knocking at the door in the Southern Ocean, and it’s starting to find ways to come in,” Ibid.
Here’s what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at World Environment Day June 5, 2024, about heat finding its way: “The truth is the world is spewing emissions so fast that by 2030, a far higher temperature rise would be all but guaranteed… The truth is we already face incursions into the 1.5-degree territory… In 2015, they said the chance of such a breach was near zero.” He calls for nations of the world to come together to halt fossil fuel emissions.
Similarly, the International Energy Agency (IEA) Declaration of 2021: “There can be no new oil and gas infrastructure if the planet is to avoid careering past 1.5C (2.7F) of global heating, above pre-industrial times.”
However, the truth is revealed only three years later, Global Energy Monitor 2024 Report: “The world’s fossil-fuel producers are on track to nearly quadruple the amount of extracted oil and gas from newly approved projects by the end of this decade, with the US leading the way in a surge of activity that threatens to blow apart agreed climate goals.”
That’ll crank up Mauna Loa’s CO2 readings to “spinning out of control” mode.
And, just for good measure: “We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas.” (Amin Nasser, Head of Aramco, speaking in Texas, March 2024).
A wall of heat hitting Antarctica is bad news and “regime shift” tells a worrisome tale. And with CO2 already cranking 100+ times faster than all history, and with fossil fuel interests on a road to madness, where does this leave Antarctica? No comment.
Still, where do things stand? There are scientists on both sides of the maxim “we are screwed,” some say, “we can still work out of this self-inflicted disaster,” but others say, “it’s already too late.” Usually, these situations end up somewhere in the middle. So, what will “we are partially screwed” look like?
Not good.
(Robert Hunziker, MA, economic history DePaul University, awarded membership in Pi Gamma Mu International Academic Honor Society in Social Sciences is a freelance writer and environmental journalist who has over 200 published articles appearing in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide.)
