The sea ice around Antarctica shrank to the smallest area ever recorded in early 2022, and there were exceptionally high temperatures at both poles
Environment
14 December 2022
Icebergs float in Disko Bay, Ilulissat, western Greenland, on 28 June ODD Andersen/Afp Via Getty Images
Minus 12°C would be a frigid afternoon almost anywhere except Antarctica. But when the temperature hit -12.2°C on 18 March at Concordia research station, 1600 kilometres from the South Pole, it was the highest reading recorded at that location.
The exceptional conditions were driven by atmospheric rivers that have brought warm, wet air to the Antarctic continent more frequently in recent years, says Catherine Walker at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. She says human-caused warming …
