Ukrainian climatologists and scientists at the National Antarctic Scientific Center Svitlana Krakovska and Anastasiia Chyhareva co-authored an article about temperature records in the Antarctic. This is stated in a post by the National Antarctic Scientific Center on Facebook.

The publication in the journal Nature is titled “Record high temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula and melting in February 2022: a complex event influenced by an intense atmospheric river”.

It refers to the events of early February last year, when a new temperature record of +12.7 C° was recorded at the Akademik Vernadsky station. At the same time, the air temperature rose rapidly throughout our entire Antarctic Peninsula region.

“The researchers explain that the temperature jump occurred as a result of the region’s “passage” through an atmospheric river. This is a narrow band with a high concentration of atmospheric moisture that quickly transferred warm masses of air and moisture from the tropics to the Antarctic. Strong warm winds from the mountains also contributed to the anomalous warming,” the National Antarctic Scientific Center said in a statement.

Understanding these causes will help scientists identify the most vulnerable regions to change and predict extreme weather conditions.

Scientists also emphasize that the frequency of such events could undermine the stability of the Antarctic Peninsula’s ice shelves.

“Increasing frequency of such events can undermine the stability of the AP ice shelves, with multiple local to global impacts, including acceleration of the AP ice mass loss and changes in sensitive ecosystems,” they say.

The research and writing of the article involved the combined efforts of scholars from different countries: Portugal, the United States, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, and others. The text can be found here.