Worried about the minimum amount of ice: polar explorers talked about this year’s winter in Antarctica
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This year in July, the world set temperature records. The area of Akademik Vernadsky station was no exception. Although this year’s winter was colder than the previous one, polar explorers noticed an alarming anomaly – the minimum amount of ice. This year, on July 3, Vernadskyi meteorologists recorded the highest temperature for all years of observation – 8.7°С. The previous record was set in 1965, when the station still belonged to Great Britain. “This record caused concern, because the Antarctic winter of 2022 in our area has already become the warmest in the history of observations – the average temperature was only slightly lower than -2°C,” – say the polar explorers. Photo: Serhiy Glotov That is why scientists carefully monitored the course of winter and investigated whether it would be even warmer. After analyzing the data, it was found that the winter of 2023 returned to the norm of the past decades. Average monthly temperature values are as follows: June -3.3; July -3.6; August -6.3°С. At the same time, scientists drew attention to the fact that the lowest temperature values below 0 are expressed very weakly. The coldest day was marked by a temperature of only -13.8°C, although earlier this indicator ranged from -15 to -30 degrees Celsius. Scientists explain this with another anomaly – a local current that appeared along the Antarctic Peninsula. “That’s why this year there was little floating ice in the water area of ”Vernadskyi”, and the stable ice cover, which usually “binds” the sea around our island in winter, did not form at all,” explains Denys Pishniak, head of the Department of Atmospheric Physics and Geospace of the National Center for Scientific Research. It is thanks to the open water that the penguins returned to the island earlier, and the reproductive season of the Weddell seals is complicated by the lack of ice. At the same time, scientists fear an ice anomaly, because the white ice cover of the ocean reflects the sun’s rays back into the atmosphere and cools the water. On the other hand, when exposed, dark areas of water absorb light and heat an even larger area. If this continues, the role of Antarctica as a regulator of the Earth’s global temperatures may be disrupted in the future. We will remind you that earlier we talked about the death of a thousand emperor penguin chicks due to warming. Read also: Stellar beauty: polar explorers showed the night sky above the Akademik Vernadskyi station. PHOTO
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