A small group of scientists – from NASA, the University of Washington, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a couple other prestigious meteorological universities – today released a study concluding that, yes, Antarctica is warming.
While admitting that parts of East Antarctica are actually growing colder, the study – published in Nature – concludes that West Antarctica is definitely getting warmer and that overall the continent’s temps are rising. What makes the study particularly useful is that it’s based on satellite study which provides new insight into temperature patterns across the entire continent; previously much of the information about Antarctica has been gathered only from weather stations, most of which are located close to the coastline.
“The thing you hear all the time is that Antarctica is cooling and that’s not the case,” says the report. “If anything it’s the reverse, but it’s more complex than that. Antarctica isn’t warming at the same rate everywhere, and while some areas have been cooling for a long time the evidence shows the continent as a whole is getting warmer.” A major reason parts of Antarctica are thought to be cooling is because of the hole in the ozone layer.
Having been to West Antarctica for several consecutive seasons I could have saved them a lot of time and money with my own empirical evidence. This past month we saw a six-foot ice sheet on Porquoi Pas Island disappear in 11 days. We experienced temperatures that often climbed into the 40s. And traveled through sizable bays generally chocked with broken-up pack ice this time of year completely void of ice.
It’s clear the place is changing and valuable to have the backing of hard science to support what we are seeing with our own eyes.
Click on an image to see full-size
Penguins at Bongrain Point
Green lichen, Bongrain Point
Brown lichen, Bongrain Point
Red lichen, Bongrain Point
Beach ice, Bongrain Point
Crabeater seals sleeping, Jones Ice Shelf
Penguin tracks, Jones Ice Shelf
Crabeater seal prowling the ice edge, Jones Ice Shelf
March of the penguin, Jones Ice Shelf
Ice pans breaking away from the edge, Jones Ice Shelf
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Photos, Fiona Stewart
PORQUOI PAS?, MARGUERITE BAY
Far south again, more than one hundred miles south of the Antarctic Circle, on Christmas morning we successfully landed at Bongrain Point, on the western edge of Porquoi Pas Island. It was a success too, because we’d been here eleven days ago and could only look at the beach through binoculars. A six-foot-thick lip of hard ice and snow lined the beach; we tried hacking steps with a hand ax, but it would have been a half-day’s work.
Instead today we rolled straight onto the beach, unimpeded by anything but underwater rocks exposed by the withdrawing tide and some floating growlers. That six feet of hard snow and ice? Gone. Completely gone. In eleven days. Think it’s not warming here, and warming fast? This isn’t some Denver suburb after a spring snow dump but far south Antarctica. Even in December – the equivalent of June in the northern hemisphere’s summer – the ice is disappearing faster and faster each season.
I love the place names around Marguerite Bay, which was named for the wife of the region’s earliest explorer, Jean-Baptiste Etienne August Charcot, who spent most of 1909-11 in the neighborhood explorig. Porquois Pas? comes from the name of Charcot’s ship; the tallest mountain on the island is Mt. Verne, for Jules Verne, and Bongrain Point for the ship’s first officer. Charcot Island was originally Charcot Land; the Frenchies mistakenly thought they’d hit continent at that point, but it later turned out to be a very big island.
In the afternoon we move up to the end of Bourgeois Fjord (named after Joseph E., director of the Geographic Service of the French Army) … where I had a great, long Christmas Day walk on the fast ice, surrounded by some of the most magnificent scenery in Antarctica.
WATCH VIDEO FROM BOURGEOIS FJORD, ON CHRISTMAS DAY!
Photos, Fiona Stewart
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