Extremes of 40C above normal: what’s causing ‘extraordinary’ heating in polar regions? Antarctic and Arctic temperatures have shocked researchers. How unusual are they? What are the consequences? Guardian Donna Lu 21 Mar 2022Unusually high temperatures in both Antarctica and the Arctic in recent days have shocked researchers, who warn that extremes will become more common as a result of the climate crisis.Concordia station, high on the Antarctic Plateau, hit a record temperature of -11.8C on Friday, more than 40C warmer than seasonal norms. Vostok station registered a temperature of -17.7C, beating its record by 15C. At the same time, some stations near the north pole reached 30C above normal, with records broken in Norway and unusually warm temperatures recorded in Greenland and the Russian archipelago of Franz Josef Land. The Antarctic continent as a whole on Friday was about 4.8C warmer compared to a baseline temperature between 1979 and 2000, the Associated Press reported. On the same day, the Arctic as a whole was 3.3C warmer than the 1979 to 2000 average. 

What is causing the high temperatures?......“Both of these weather events are related to the poleward transport of heat and moisture,” said Dr Zachary Labe, a climate scientist at Colorado State University, on Twitter. Alex Sen Gupta, an associate professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said strong winds coming from Australia were contributing to the unusual temperatures in Antarctica. “We have had a combination of strong weather systems over the Southern Ocean to the south of Australia that aligned to produce very strong polewards winds stretching from Australia to eastern Antarctica.” An atmospheric river was also a major contributing factor to the high temperatures in the eastern Antarctic, according to Prof Julie Arblaster, a climate researcher at Monash University. “These are rivers of moisture in the air that bring warm and moist air to certain locations, and there was a really significant one occurring in that region over Antarctica.”  The moist air has trapped heat over the continent, resulting in the warm surface temperatures. “Right now we’ve got the lowest sea ice extent on record in Antarctica,” Arblaster said. “A lot of the sea ice around Antarctica that might be there normally close to the continent is now ocean. It would be really interesting to understand if there’s any connection between the low Antarctic sea ice extent and these warm temperatures.”

How unusual are temperatures like this?...... The heat in eastern Antarctica was an “extraordinary event”, Arblaster said. “These are temperature anomalies of between 15 to 40C.” Gupta said: “It looks like large parts of eastern Antarctica reached over 20C warmer than normal. Warming started on the 15th [March] and still persists.” Prof Matt King, who leads the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, said a lack of longterm temperature records made the heatwave difficult to contextualise historically. “The first of the precise temperature records start in the late 1950s, so it’s really hard to work out what’s remarkable and what’s not,” King said. But, he warned, the impact of the climate crisis meant events like these would be a “view to the future. Sometime down the track, depending on what we do with our carbon emissions, we might see these types of temperatures much more regularly.”.....read on   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/21/extremes-of-40c-above-normal-whats-causing-extraordinary-heating-in-polar-regions

Many extreme weather events are becoming more common and more intense around the world, fuelled by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels. BBC Here are four ways that rising temperatures are affecting weather extremes. 

1. Hotter, longer heatwaves.......Even a small increase in average temperatures makes a big difference to heat extremes. As the range of daily temperatures shifts to warmer levels, hotter days become more likely and more intense. Scientists use computer models to simulate how individual extreme weather events unfold in two scenarios.......today's world with about 1.3C or more of human-caused warming........a hypothetical world without human influence on the climate. That way, they can estimate how much a particular heatwave, storm or drought was affected by climate change. In the UK, temperatures topped 40C for the first time on record in July 2022, causing extensive disruption. This would have been extremely unlikely without climate change, according to scientists at the World Weather Attribution group (WWA). In June 2025, the Met Office said the chance of seeing temperatures above 40C was now more than 20 times greater than during than 1960s. And the likelihood of reaching such temperatures will continue to rise as the world warms, it said. Around the world, climate change has made countless heatwaves much more likely and more intense, the WWA says. Examples include 48C temperatures in Mali in April 2024 and prolonged, widespread heat in Scandinavia in July 2025, with temperatures regularly passing 30C in Norway. Heatwaves can happen as a result of heat domes, which are created when an area of high pressure stays over the same area for days or weeks, trapping hot air underneath. One theory suggests that higher temperatures in the Arctic - which has warmed nearly four times faster than the global average - are affecting the fast band of winds high in the atmosphere known as the jet stream. That could be making heat domes more likely, although this is not clear cut. 

2. More extreme rain.......For every 1C rise in air temperature, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture. With more moisture available, rainfall can become heavier.......read on        https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4dgp1p3p1o

How climate change worsens heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and floods BBC5 November 2025 Mark PoyntingClimate reporter, BBC News Many extreme weather events are becoming more common and more intense around the world, fuelled by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels. Here are four ways that rising temperatures are affecting weather extremes.1. Hotter, longer heat waves Even a small increase in average temperatures makes a big difference to heat extremes. As the range of daily temperatures shifts to warmer levels, hotter days become more likely and more intense. Scientists use computer models to simulate how individual extreme weather events unfold in two scenarios.......today's world with about 1.3C or more of human-caused warming.........a hypothetical world without human influence on the climate. That way, they can estimate how much a particular heatwave, storm or drought was affected by climate change. In the UK, temperatures topped 40C for the first time on record in July 2022, causing extensive disruption.This would have been extremely unlikely without climate change, according to scientists at the World Weather Attribution group (WWA). In June 2025, the Met Office said the chance of seeing temperatures above 40C was now more than 20 times greater than during than 1960s. And the likelihood of reaching such temperatures will continue to rise as the world warms, it said.One theory suggests that higher temperatures in the Arctic - which has warmed nearly four times faster than the global average - are affecting the fast band of winds high in the atmosphere known as the jet stream. That could be making heat domes more likely, although this is not clear cut.

Current National Climate Pledges Fall Far Short of What Is Needed to Limit Warming to 1.5C, Report Shows Earth.Org Martina IginiGlobal CommonsOct 30th 2025 Limiting global warming to 1.5C will require a reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions of 43% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels. We are currently on track to slash them by 17% by 2035. Current emissions reduction pledges will slash emissions by 17% below 2019 levels by 2035, according to a new report. But the world remains well off course to keeping global warming below the critical 1.5C threshold leaders committed to by signing the Paris Agreement a decade ago. Published Wednesday by the UN climate change arm, the latest Synthesis Report on Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) looks at current climate commitments and progress toward the goals set out in the Paris Agreement. NDCs are national climate plans that each signatory to the agreement must prepare and update every five years, forming the foundation of the world’s collective efforts to tackle climate change. More than 130 countries missed a September deadline to submit the latest round of NDCs, including some of the world’s largest emitters like the European Union, Iran, South Africa and China.

Some of them have pledged to do so before next month’s COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil. The new Synthesis Report is based on 64 new NDCs submitted between January 2024 and September 2025. Collectively, they represent just one-third of global emissions, and put the world on track to slash emissions by 17% below 2019 levels by 2035. Scientists say that staying within a 1.5C warming limit will require a reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions of approximately 43% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels, peaking no later than 2025. “This report lays bare a frightening gap between what governments have promised and what is needed to protect people and planet,” said Melanie Robinson, Global Climate, Economics and Finance Program Director, World Resources Institute.Brazil, Australia, Japan and the UK were among the countries whose climate pledges were included in the report. The US also submitted a plan under former president Joe Biden. But it is unlikely that the current administration will implement it, with Trump administration officials now likely to sit out next month’s summit. Humanity is now clearly bending the emissions curve downwards for the first time, although still not nearly fast enough,” Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said on Tuesday. “We have a serious need for more speed.”Meanwhile, COP30 CEO Ana Toni called on countries to submit their updated NDCs ahead of the summit. “This will be critical for making COP30 the stage of a decisive moment in the history of multilateralism,” she said......read on   https://earth.org/current-national-climate-pledges-fall-far-short-of-what-is-needed-to-limit-warming-to-1-5c-report-shows/?mc_cid=9abc9154db&mc_eid=9e83f67e3f