New NASA Images From Antarctica Reveal Stunning Ranges of Ice Soften
Antarctica is meant to be a particularly chilly place. The annual imply temperature of the snow-laden continent’s central space is -57 levels Celsius (−70.6°F); even the coast averages round -10°C (14°F).
However on February 6, the climate station at Esperanza Base on the Antarctic Peninsula – the northernmost tip of the content material – logged the most popular temperature ever recorded on the mainland, at 18.three°C (64.9°F).
It beat out the previous report of 17.5°C, from 24 March 2015.
This newest heatwave lasted for a few week, and pictures of Eagle Island, taken by the Operational Land Imager on Landsat eight, have now captured a fairly miserable image of its influence.
The tiny Eagle Island is situated simply off the coast of Graham Land within the Antarctic Peninsula. The record-high temperatures have resulted in a considerable amount of Eagle Island’s ice cap melting into the ocean, whereas areas in the direction of the center of the island noticed soften ponds kind astonishingly rapidly.
“I have not seen soften ponds develop this rapidly in Antarctica,” says Mauri Pelto, a glaciologist at Nichols Faculty.
“You see these sorts of soften occasions in Alaska and Greenland, however not normally in Antarctica.”
Pelto additionally notes that the supply of this soften occasion – persistent excessive temperatures considerably above freezing – shouldn’t be typical of Antarctic climate patterns. However, these have change into extra widespread just lately.
In whole, snow pack on Eagle Island had over 10 centimetres (four inches) of soften within the span of only a few days – between February 6 and February 11.
Air temperatures on February 9. (GEOS-5/NASA)
This is not even the primary heatwave this season, however represents the third main soften occasion of the 2019-2020 Southern Hemisphere summer time, with each November and January additionally affected by exceptionally heat climate.
“If you concentrate on this one occasion in February, it is not that vital,” mentioned Pelto.
“It is extra vital that these occasions are coming extra ceaselessly.”