Climate of Antartica

Description

he continent-wide average surface temperature trend of Antarctica is positive and significant at >0.05 °C/decade since 1957.[2][3][4][5] The West Antarctic ice sheet has warmed by more than 0.1 °C/decade in the last 50 years, with most of the warming occurring in winter and spring. This is somewhat offset by cooling in East Antarctica during the fall. This effect is restricted to the 1980s and 1990s.[2][3][4]

Research published in 2009 found that overall the continent had become warmer since the 1950s, a finding consistent with the influence of man-made climate change:

"We can't pin it down, but it certainly is consistent with the influence of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels", said NASA scientist Drew Shindell, another study co-author. Some of the effects also could be natural variability, he said.[6]
In 2017, a study of the Antarctic Penninsula[7] found that the temperature trends on the Penninsula "shifted from a warming trend of 0.32 ºC/decade during 1979-1997 to a cooling trend of –0.47 ºC/decade during 1999-2014."