Ice sheets 10C above normal in Antarctic heatwave

Great swathes of the ice sheets of Antarctica have seen ground temperatures soaring an average of 10C above normal over the past month, in what has been described as a nearrecord heatwave.

- Damien Gayle , Dharna Noor

While temperatures remain below zero on the polar land mass, which is shrouded in darkness at this time of year, the depths of southern hemisphere winter, temperatures have reportedly reached 28C above expectations on some days.

The reports come after the globe experienced 12 months of record warmth, with temperatures consistently exceeding the 1.5C rise above pre-industrial 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.

Climate scientists' models have long predicted that the most significant effects of anthropogenic climate change would be on polar regions, "and this is a great example of that", he said. "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.

"In Antarctica, generally that kind of warming in the winter and continuing in to summer months can lead to collapsing of the ice sheets."

Last month was the first in 14 months that temperature records were not broken, but that followed an exceptionally warm July 2023, and temperatures remained 0.3C above any July before that.