Study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change
Temperatures are rising rapidly at the South Pole, considered the coldest point on Earth. So quickly that Kyle Clem and other climate researchers began to worry and ask whether man-made climate change is playing a larger than expected role in Antarctica.
Temperature data show that the region’s warming was three times the rate of global warming in the last three decades until 2018, the warmest year on record at the South Pole, researchers said in a study published this Monday (29) in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Looking at data from 20 weather stations in Antarctica, the rate of warming at the South Pole was seven times higher than the overall average on the continent. The warming of the South Pole is partly linked to the natural rise in temperatures in the western tropical Pacific, being driven south by cyclones in the icy waters of the Weddell Sea, the researchers said.
This pattern, however, which is believed to be part of a natural process spanning several decades, explains only some of the warming trends. The rest, according to the researchers, was due to man-made climate change.
