Something unusual is occurring in the skies over Antarctica . Each winter , a blisteringly cold halo of malarky quickly circulates clockwise in the stratosphere above Antarctica , shape a polar vortex around the frigid continent . This year , however , the polar vortex is n’t acting like its usual self .
Models bring about by NASA ’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office ( GMAO ) show the southern convolution above Antarctica has become outstandingly elongated , quick , and weak over this winter period .
The rotating sight of cold air typically has a round shape that match nicely around the continent , but this year it ’s shaped like a stretched - out peanut vine and wad importantly less punch in terms of wind velocity .
The southern polar vortex in August 2023 vs. August 2024.Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory
It ’s also astonishingly lovesome up there . Temperatures in the stratosphere aboveAntarcticain July are typically around -80 ° C ( -112 ° F ) . However , the preceding July construe temperature in the middle of the stratosphere surge to 15 ° C ( 27 ° degree Fahrenheit ) , setting a phonograph record . temperature then cool down briefly , before rocket to 17 ° coulomb ( 31 ° F ) on August 5 .
" The July event was the earliest stratospheric warming ever observed in GMAO ’s integral 44 - year track record , ” Lawrence Coy , an atmospheric scientist and molding expert at NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center , say in astatement .
The instability over Antarctica is so knockout thatscientists have raised concernsthat the gelid whirlpool could collapse or even change direction to anticlockwise . The last meter thisoccurred was 2002following a passel of unseasonably blistering weather .
as well , the strange goings - on in the stratosphere have a kinship to a wider heatwave in Antarctica . In late July 2024 , the southernmost continent experience temperature that were 10 to 12 ° C ( 18 to 21.6 ° F ) above average for this sentence of year , compare to the 1991 - 2020 address geological period . Brief spikes in estrus are n’t strange , but this heatwave wasworryingly retentive and widespread .
While there seems to be a connection between the strange conditions at the aerofoil and those in the stratosphere , the exact nature of the relationship is profoundly complex and not to the full understood .
“ Variations in sea surface temperature and sea trash can perturb these heavy - ordered series weather system in the troposphere that distribute upwards . But the ascription of why these systems grow is really unmanageable to do , ” explained Paul Newman , the Chief Scientist for Earth Sciences at NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center in the Earth Sciences Division .
You might also be aware that the ozone level is a component of Earth ’s stratosphere , act as a shield that protects life on Earth by ingest ultraviolet light .
Interestingly , warming result eviscerate ozone gas from other parts of the stratosphere toward the arctic area , which mean the ozone muddle over the Southern Hemisphere is currently very pocket-size . In fact , the golf hole in the ozone layer has undergone a monumental “ retrieval ” in late long time and is on track to befully bring around in a few decade .
