The Extraordinary March 2022 East Antarctica "Heat" Wave. Part I: Observations and Meteorological Drivers
Jonathan D Wille
(1, 2)
,
Simon P Alexander
(3)
,
Charles Amory
(1, 2)
,
Rebecca Baiman
(4)
,
Léonard Barthélemy
(5, 6)
,
Dana M Bergstrom
(3)
,
Alexis Berne
(7)
,
Hanin Binder
(8, 9)
,
J Blanchet
(1, 2)
,
Deniz Bozkurt
(10)
,
Thomas J Bracegirdle
(11)
,
Mathieu Casado
(12, 13)
,
Taejin Choi
(14)
,
Kyle R Clem
(15)
,
Francis Codron
(5, 16, 17, 6)
,
Rajashree Datta
(3)
,
Stefano Di Battista
(18)
,
Vincent Favier
(1, 2)
,
Diana Francis
(19)
,
Alexander D Fraser
(20)
,
Elise Fourré
(12, 13)
,
René D Garreaud
(21)
,
Christophe Genthon
(9)
,
Irina V Gorodetskaya
(22)
,
Sergi González-Herrero
(23)
,
Victoria J Heinrich
(24)
,
Guillaume Hubert
(25)
,
Hanna Joos
(8)
,
Seong-Joong Kim
(14)
,
John C King
(26)
,
Christoph Kittel
(1)
,
Amaelle Landais
(12, 13)
,
Matthew Lazzara
(27)
,
Gregory H Leonard
(28)
,
Jan L Lieser
(20)
,
Michelle Maclennan
(4)
,
David Mikolajczyk
(27)
,
Peter Neff
(29)
,
Inès Ollivier
(30, 12)
,
Ghislain Picard
(1)
,
Benjamin Pohl
(31, 32, 33, 34)
,
F. Martin Ralph
(35)
,
Penny Rowe
(36)
,
Elisabeth Schlosser
(37)
,
Christine A Shields
(38)
,
Inga J Smith
(28)
,
Michael Sprenger
(8)
,
Luke Trusel
(39)
,
Danielle Udy
(20)
,
Tessa Vance
(20)
,
Étienne Vignon
(9)
,
Catherine Walker
(40)
,
Nander Wever
(4, 23)
,
Xun Zou
(35)
1
IGE -
Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement
2 UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes
3 Loyola University [Chicago]
4 ATOC - Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences [Boulder]
5 LOCEAN-VARCLIM - Océan et variabilité du climat
6 LOCEAN - Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques
7 EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
8 IAC - Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science [Zürich]
9 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)
10 Universidad de Valparaiso [Chile]
11 BAS - British Antarctic Survey
12 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
13 GLACCIOS - Glaces et Continents, Climats et Isotopes Stables
14 KOPRI - Korea Polar Research Institute
15 School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences [Wellington]
16 SU - Sorbonne Université
17 UPMC - Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6
18 Meteogiornale
19 ENGEOS Lab - Environmental and Geophysical Sciences Lab
20 IMAS - Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies [Hobart]
21 Departamento de Geofísica [Santiago]
22 CESAM - Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies [Aveiro]
23 SLF - SLF Institut pour l'étude de la neige et des avalanches
24 UTAS - University of Tasmania [Launceston]
25 DPHY, ONERA, Université de Toulouse [Toulouse]
26 URI - University of Rhode Island
27 SSEC - Space Science and Engineering Center [Madison]
28 University of Otago [Dunedin, Nouvelle-Zélande]
29 UMN - University of Minnesota [Twin Cities]
30 BCCR - Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research
31 BGS - Biogéosciences [UMR 6282]
32 CRC - Centre de Recherches de Climatologie [UMR Biogéosciences]
33 UB - Université de Bourgogne
34 CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
35 SIO - UC San Diego - Scripps Institution of Oceanography
36 NWRA - NorthWest Research Associates
37 Universität Innsbruck [Innsbruck]
38 NCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research [Boulder]
39 Penn State - Pennsylvania State University
40 WHOI - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
2 UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes
3 Loyola University [Chicago]
4 ATOC - Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences [Boulder]
5 LOCEAN-VARCLIM - Océan et variabilité du climat
6 LOCEAN - Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques
7 EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
8 IAC - Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science [Zürich]
9 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)
10 Universidad de Valparaiso [Chile]
11 BAS - British Antarctic Survey
12 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
13 GLACCIOS - Glaces et Continents, Climats et Isotopes Stables
14 KOPRI - Korea Polar Research Institute
15 School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences [Wellington]
16 SU - Sorbonne Université
17 UPMC - Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6
18 Meteogiornale
19 ENGEOS Lab - Environmental and Geophysical Sciences Lab
20 IMAS - Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies [Hobart]
21 Departamento de Geofísica [Santiago]
22 CESAM - Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies [Aveiro]
23 SLF - SLF Institut pour l'étude de la neige et des avalanches
24 UTAS - University of Tasmania [Launceston]
25 DPHY, ONERA, Université de Toulouse [Toulouse]
26 URI - University of Rhode Island
27 SSEC - Space Science and Engineering Center [Madison]
28 University of Otago [Dunedin, Nouvelle-Zélande]
29 UMN - University of Minnesota [Twin Cities]
30 BCCR - Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research
31 BGS - Biogéosciences [UMR 6282]
32 CRC - Centre de Recherches de Climatologie [UMR Biogéosciences]
33 UB - Université de Bourgogne
34 CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
35 SIO - UC San Diego - Scripps Institution of Oceanography
36 NWRA - NorthWest Research Associates
37 Universität Innsbruck [Innsbruck]
38 NCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research [Boulder]
39 Penn State - Pennsylvania State University
40 WHOI - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Léonard Barthélemy
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 1313924
- IdHAL : leonard-barthelemy
- ORCID : 0009-0002-0479-2116
J Blanchet
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 742198
- IdHAL : juliette-blanchet
- ORCID : 0000-0001-8088-8895
Mathieu Casado
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 779454
- IdHAL : mathieu-casado
- ORCID : 0000-0002-8185-415X
- IdRef : 19947494X
Francis Codron
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 13448
- IdHAL : francis-codron
- ORCID : 0000-0001-7038-6189
- IdRef : 177314923
Vincent Favier
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 761044
- IdHAL : vincent-favier
- ORCID : 0000-0001-6024-9498
- IdRef : 070138389
Ghislain Picard
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 757723
- IdHAL : ghislain-picard
- ORCID : 0000-0003-1475-5853
Benjamin Pohl
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 750886
- IdHAL : benjamin-pohl
- ORCID : 0000-0002-9339-797X
Étienne Vignon
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 777817
- IdHAL : etienne-vignon
- ORCID : 0000-0003-3801-9367
- IdRef : 223851205
Abstract
Between March 15-19, 2022, East Antarctica experienced an exceptional heatwave with widespread 30-40° C temperature anomalies across the ice sheet. This record-shattering event saw numerous monthly temperature records being broken including a new all-time temperature record of -9.4° C on March 18 at Concordia Station despite March typically being a transition month to the Antarctic coreless winter. The driver for these temperature extremes was an intense atmospheric river advecting subtropical/mid-latitude heat and moisture deep into the Antarctic interior. The scope of the temperature records spurred a large, diverse collaborative effort to study the heatwaves meteorological drivers, impacts, and historical climate context. Here we focus on describing those temperature records along with the intricate meteorological drivers that led to the most intense atmospheric river observed over East Antarctica. These efforts describe the Rossby wave activity forced from intense tropical convection over the Indian Ocean. This led to an atmospheric river and warm conveyor belt intensification near the coastline which reinforced atmospheric blocking deep into East Antarctica. The resulting moisture flux and upper-level warm air advection eroded the typical surface temperature inversions over the ice sheet. At the peak of the heatwave, an area of 3.3 million km2 in East Antarctica exceeded previous March monthly temperature records. Despite a temperature anomaly return time of about one hundred years, a closer recurrence of such an event is possible under future climate projections. In a subsequent manuscript, we describe the various impacts this extreme event had on the East Antarctic cryosphere.
Domains
Ocean, Atmosphere| Origin | Files produced by the author(s) |
|---|---|
| Licence |
