It’s T-Shirt Weather In Antarctica!
By Paul Homewood
When one day’s weather is climate!
Argentine scientists on the Esperanza base who confirmed the reading said that wasn’t the only record broken this week. The nation’s Marambio site registered the highest temperature for the month of February since 1971. Thermometers there hit 14.1 Celsius, above the previous February 2013 reading of 13.8 Celsius.
The reports are shocking, but not surprising, said Frida Bengtsson, who is leading a expedition to the Antarctic for the environmental group Greenpeace.
“We’ve been in the Antarctic for the last month, documenting the dramatic changes this part of the world is undergoing as our planet warms,” she said in an email. “In the last month, we’ve seen penguin colonies sharply declining under the impacts of climate change in this supposedly pristine environment.”
Antarctica is among the fastest-warming regions in the planet, with the Antarctic Peninsula, where the Argentine bases are located, warming particularly quickly, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Average temperatures on the continent have risen almost 3 degree Celsius over the past 50 years, and during that time glaciers along the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula have retreated.
WMO experts will now investigate whether the warm event recorded by Argentine scientists is a weather phenomenon known as foehn. That is a common event in Alpine regions that often involves high winds at altitude and the rapid warming of air as it heads down slopes or peaks, driven by significant air pressure differences, the WMO said in a statement.
The WMO will also determine whether the temperature extreme is a new record for the entire Antarctic landmass. The Signy island in the Antarctic region, which includes everywhere south of 60 degrees latitude, recorded an all-time high temperature of 19.8 Celsius in January 1982. The average annual temperature ranges from about -10 Celsius on the Antarctic coast to -60 Celsius at the highest points of the interior.
So does this mean the Antarctic is going into meltdown?
For a start, Bloomberg are incorrect in stating that the previous record was five years ago. In fact, the previous highest temperature was 18.0C set as long ago as 13th March 1979:
A increase from 18.0C to 18.3C over a period of 41 years is hardly cause for panic, particularly when foehn winds can make such a big difference. And as the graph shows, occasional warmish days at Esperanza are not unheard of.
Longer climate trends at Esperanza show a rise in temperatures until around 1980, since when there has been little change:
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/stdata_show_v4.cgi?id=AYM00088963&ds=14&dt=1
More significantly though, summer temperatures have actually been steadily declining there since 2002:
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/STATIONS/tmp_AYM00088963_14_0_1/station.txt
Which brings us to this ludicrous claim:
Antarctica is among the fastest-warming regions in the planet, with the Antarctic Peninsula, where the Argentine bases are located, warming particularly quickly, according to the World Meteorological Organization
As we are increasingly finding out, it appears that most places in the world are “warming faster than everywhere else ”!
Unsurprisingly, when we check the actual data though, we find nothing of the sort. Temperatures have in fact barely changed at all since the 1970s:
But apparently a “scientist” from Greenpeace, who has been there just a month, can see the dramatic changes this part of the world is undergoing as our planet warms.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I’d like to see her evidence of the dramatic decline in the penquin population in that month!
Probably similar to the predicted decline of the Polar Bear population in the Arctic!
Being eaten by polar bears that have migrated south from the north pole due to overcrowding.
The ‘normal’ maximum temperature in that location at this time of year is about +4C and the forecast for this coming week will see maximum more ‘normal’ – between -1 and +4C. It’s still below -30C below most of the continent at the moment. The east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula (where this base is located) is occasionally subject to foehn winds, being east/north east of the mountainous spine of the Peninsula. I would imagine this is the case this time. It is plain from the weather records I have looked at that the 18C on the 7th at Esperanza Base was a real ‘outlier’ – the maximum temperature on the 6th was only about 2C and it’s back to 2c today. The maxima had been below 5C for all but one day for the last fortnight.
In addition note the paper by John Turner et al in Nature 535, 411-415 (2016) that looks at the Antarctic Peninsula and concludes that there is quote “An absence of regional warming since the late 1990s. The annual mean temperature has decreased at a statistically significant rate, with the most rapid cooling during the Austral summer”.
But that one day (not an error of course…?) is enough to kill off the penguins.
Also compare and contrast the recent media interest in this isolated temperature in Antarctica with unreported apparent record cold in Greenland. Summit Camp on Greenland may have recorded its lowest all-time ever temperature on 2nd January – although there has been no real publicity (I wonder why? This would also, I think, be a record for Greenland as a whole). From the NOAA data feed (at geosummit.org) I can see a minute by minute 2 metre temperature for that day with readings mostly below -62C and a temperature as low as -64.9C at 23:13, 23:15 and 23:16. This will, I assume, be subject to verification but is lower than the previous all-time low of -63.3C recorded on 21 Feb 2002. ‘Normal’ minima are about -48 in January, with maxima(!) of about -36C. Funny how the press haven’t reported this…..
About 1min20secs
air arond the region pretty cold.
I like the debunking of “dark” matter and the so called image (which was a composite image anyway), of the “black” hole in this video. It’s pretty clear that anything “occult”, “dark”, “black” and therefore hidden, not known, unseen is non existent. These entities are unverifiable and exist only in the imagination. To see a “black” hole look down a plughole, or the middle of a Catherine wheel, or a satellite image of a hurricane, it’s a visual thing not an entity.
You might like this
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL7QIOZteWPpBWBOl8i0e-g
The climate scammers own the mainstream media. How can we change that?
“How can we change that?”
We can’t.
Opinion polls show that virtually the entire population of the UK automatically mumbles “because of dangerous climate change’ after hearing just about any news. Sort of like the Congregation in Church saying Amen after everything. I suppose they feel they are in on some secret, or perhaps anxious to avoid a dirty look from God (substitute Gaia).
Probably by showing them how poor they will be if the loonies implement their ideas to combat global warming. Most people would opt to keep their standard of living in place of it being a bit warmer.
“Antarctica is among the fastest-warming regions in the planet, with the Antarctic Peninsula, where the Argentine bases are located, warming particularly quickly, according to the World Meteorological Organization. As we are increasingly finding out, it appears that most places in the world are “warming faster than everywhere else ”
Well now…the global average temperature (NOAA, not NASA) is now about 14.83°C. Over 100 years ago its was 14.0°C. The Northern hemisphere was warmer, 14.6°C but the SH was cooler 13.4°C. If it’s now warming everywhere, how much have the two hemispheres risen to average 14.83°C?
Meanwhile, concurrent Not-Tee-Shirt weather elsewhere in Antarctica was a tad chilly -44.9℃
PS – has the record actually been verified by WMO?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/07/antarctica-logs-hottest-temperature-on-record-with-a-reading-of-183c
To paraphrase what Mandy Rice-Davies implied “Well he would say that, wouldn’t he?”
“Of course the record does need to be checked, but pending those checks,..”
You can imagine how those ‘checks’ will work , they are only used to increase lows not decrease highs.
A research base is hardly the best location to give regional temperatures, Im suspecting some additional ‘man made warming’ by the outsiders. Guess what a Greenpeace scientist has been there a month!
There is a different base nearby , which sounds like its Chilean- ‘General Bernado O’higgins Base .
I wonder what the temperatures there have been like for the same day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_General_Bernardo_O%27Higgins_Riquelme
It has been there since 1948, not really a long period.
Found the Gistemp data for O’higgins, quite a lot of gaps.
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/stdata_show_v3.cgi?id=700890590018&ds=5&dt=1
Surely no-one has been measuring in detail the Antarctic temperatures until fairly recently.
Adding to LeedsChris’ post, No Tricks Zone ran a report a couple of weeks ago that 13 out of 13 reporting stations on the Antarctic Peninsula show a cooling trend over the past 21 years. Actually I am a bit wary of that 21 years as it must start around the el Nino peak but perhaps you have data which can confirm or otherwise the picture with different starting points.
I can only refer to the paper in Nature that was looking at the records from the 1950s and saw that (for the Antarctic Peninsula, at least) there has been cooling since the late 19901. The data I have for Esperanza base show a mean January temperature of 1.6C for Esperanza for the period 1981-2010 – for the more recent period of 2010-20 it is only 1.0C. I use January because we already have the Esperanza temperature data for 2020… This shows the last month (Jan 2020) had a mean temperature of 2.1c, but it is worth pointing out that this is the first above average January there since 2012(!) and only the 5th warmest in two decades. It’s a pity no so-called science journalist cannot do the simple research that I can do from my home computer!
Does anyone know if the current maximum temperature recording system is the same for the entire length of the dataset? For example, are they using electric thermometers and automatic recording and have they used this system throughout?
‘Record temperatures’ are much more likely with automatic recording being taken every minute, as opposed to manual observations at certain times of the day.
https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/science/clothing_in_antarctica_2.php
This site contains the following details about Amundsen’s journey to the South Pole:
“While on his journey to the South Pole, he sledged only in this underwear at times to cool down. ”
A few months later, the low temperatures killed Scott’s party.
WOW ?!?! a full 0.3*C. I didn’t realize we had glass thermometers that could show a decimal of *C ??? Oh, it was an digital electric thermo. Was it calibrated for accuracy, recently ????
My favorite line:
“In the last month, we’ve seen penguin colonies sharply declining under the impacts of climate change . .”
Declining colonies in one month?
As usual, Tony Heller gives us the full story on this latest piece of climate alarmist nonsense:
With Arctic ice recovering well and Australia having rain, the charlatans have shifted to Antarctica.
It’s a new piece that says that there has been a massive recovery in Arctic sea ice
.. so the news is “look over there in Antarctica”
The temperature claim is made at a place that is the same distance from the pole as Oslo is from the North Pole.
It’s worth watching the whole vid
“In the last month, we’ve seen penguin colonies sharply declining…”
Really? Declining in a month?
And what does the bit about warmest since 1971 mean? That it was warmer early fifty years ago or is that just the length of the record?
They probably flew off to the beach to sunbathe!
Don’t they know flying is bad for the environment – that will be the cause of those high temperatures.
Maybe this is like Adelei(?) penguins a few months ago, which had been disappearing. Suddenly they found a colony of 1.5 million where they hadn’t looked before. I presume they hide from inquisitive, interfering activists.
See also
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/02/08/antarctica-hottest-ever/
There’ll be a lot of relieved refugees:
Ooops – just discovered that image is shown in Tony H’s vid that AndyDan linked to.
I guess we both nicked it from the same source.
Can these idiots get any more absurd?
The nation’s Marambio site registered the highest temperature for the month of February since 1971. …STILL the Rentseeker from Greenpeace says “The reports are shocking, but not surprising, said Frida Bengtsson and then we are told the temperatures have risen 3 degC since 1971. SHOCKING that it was WARMER in 1971! They are so corrupted by their own garbage they are incapable or rational thought!
Need to look at Byrd station. The claim in a 2012 paper is that it is the fastest warming.
But the latest data to mid 2019 refutes that.
Plus, the warming trend is only significant if the first 6 years if data are included.
And on current trends, the last 28 years show statistically significant cooling.
Currently travelling to give sceptical cc press in lakes. Will try and add references tomorrow.
The biggest fly in the alarmist ointment is the likelihood that CO2 increase has nothing to do with the climate. There is no evidence that CO2 has ever had any impact on the global temperature. The current correlation does not imply causation. In fact, the only correlation between CO2 and temperature variation tracking both up and downtrends shows the reverse, and there is some physical justification for that one. The fact that adding CO2 to a closed chamber increases the temperature therein somewhat is not evidence of what happens in the open atmosphere. Satellites detect heat escaping to space. The open atmosphere is hardly comparable to a greenhouse.There are also no planetary-level feedbacks within a closed chamber. The greenhouse gas theory has issues when applied to the open atmosphere.
Obviously, CO2 increase cannot go on indefinitely, but we have some time and technology is moving faster every day. Submarine crews survive in 5,000+ppmv of CO2. Plants LOVE the extra CO2, and grow faster and healthier and require less water.
More than a couple of decades ago Henrik Svensmark (Danish physicist) and his associates came up with a different theory. Their theory is based on historical data (SOP for scientific method) rather than the alarmists pure speculation about CO2 influence. Svensmark claims that sun activity modulates an otherwise steady stream of cosmic rays entering the lower atmosphere. Cosmic rays influence cloud coverage. Until recently sun activity has been high. That scenario leads to less penetration of cosmic rays, hence less cloud cover so more sun radiation reaching the earth’s surface which leads to warming.
Sun activity is now very low. During low sun activity more cosmic rays penetrate the lower atmosphere leading to more cloud cover which deflects more sun back into space so less sun radiation on the earth surface which leads to cooling. CERN has confirmed that cosmic rays can influence cloud cover.
More recently Dr. Easterbrook has apparently expanded Svensmark’s analysis to cover the past 800,000 years. His book: “The Sun Magnetic Cause of Climate Changes and Origin of the Ice Ages”
Both of these scientists rule out CO2 impact and also recognize that at least some of our earlier warmings were global and at least as warm as it is now, probably warmer.
The location of the base is nearly on the Polar//Temperate zone line. It is 3000 km from the Pole. Populated 365 days a year and they use a large amount of diesel to stay alive.
When grand claims are made always ask ‘if we are talking about Real World, or one of a million PR worlds ?’
At minute 5 of Tony Heller’s video he mentions the article that was in Saturday’s Times and the Sunday Times
And the print edition talks about “a base NEAR the Twaites glacier”
This confused a BiasedBBC commenter
who said “Their “article” on the raised temperatures at the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica fails to mention, as the BBC also did, that there are volcanoes beneath it.
Yeh cos the Times played a trick the mentioned a record temp on the PENINSULA and then started talking about Thwaites
.. the distance is massive it’s 2,500- 3,000Km minimum. The base is sticking right out at a long thin peninsula pointing to South America.
So of course the temp recorded at the base isn’t that much influenced by undersea volcanoes 2,500Km away at the edge of Thwaites.
So we have one station recording this on the peninsula and that is being taken as an indicator for a continent the size of Europe? Really?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/09/medias-horribly-dishonest-antarctica-propaganda/
They detail a peer review paper which previously looked into tropical air flows and Foehn effects at Esperanza