Ground temperatures across great swathes of the ice sheets of Antarctica have soared an average of 10C above normal over the past month, in what has been described as a near record heatwave. The globe has experienced 12 months of record warmth, with temperatures consistently exceeding the 1.5C rise above preindustrial levels that has been touted as the limit to avoiding the worst of climate breakdown. Michael Dukes, the director of forecasting at MetDesk, said that while individual daily high temperatures were surprising, far more significant was the average rise over the month. “Usually you can’t just look at one month for a climate trend but it is right in line with what models predict,” Dukes added. Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, said Antarctica’s heatwave had “definitely been one of the bigger drivers in the spike of global temperatures in recent weeks”.

Source: The Guardian August 02, 2024 08:36 UTC