I wanted to learn more so i went looking for an article. Heres a pretty good write up. https://www.sciencealert.com/flowers-are-spreading-in-antarctica-as-summer-temperatures-soar
TLDR: Lots of flowering plants, moss and algae spreading. In March, temperatures near the south pole reached 39 °C above normal for three days in a row, hitting a peak of -10 °C (14 °F). Warm enough for researchers to walk around in shorts and shirtless…In Antarctica. Yeah were fucked.
I find it hilarious that they’re like “It’s 14F! Break out the shorts and T-shirts!” Meanwhile anyone anywhere else (except the Arctic regions) is like “This is pretty fucking cold”.
It likely feels warmer. Antarctica is almost entirely desert. The “dry heat” argument works for cold, too.
I’ve been outside in a t-shirt and jeans in northern Greenland (also polar desert) when it was below freezing and was completely comfortable. I could have hung around out there all day if the day wasn’t four months long. I like the cold and I’ve got extra mass to keep me warm, though.
I suspect the sunshine bouncing off all the snow helps too
Maybe at the south pole. There’s little to no snow around where I was in northern Greenland. It gets above freezing up there during the summer and it almost never snows, so what accumulation you do get is actually from snow being blown off the ice cap rather than down from the sky. So it takes a while to build back up in the winter.
Yeah I know what you mean. I’m from the North East US and it gets pretty damn humid here (somehow it’s been more humid than places with a tropical climate like Miami, Florida), which extends into the winter. The high humidity, combined with low temperatures (0-35F, not including wind chill) and moderate winds means a damn cold winter.
I was out in Denver, Colorado a few years ago during the late fall, early winter. They had a freak snowstorm which dropped their temperature from like 65F to 25F over night. I didn’t know what to bring so I brought all my winter gear. I got there and was like “This is nothing!” because the humidity was low. I was outside in jeans and a heavy/double lined hoodie and was fine. Normally in NYC I’d be wearing an Arctic level jacket due to the wind and humidity.
My buddy was in the army and stationed in Fairbanks, Alaska. After being there for a year he came home for Christmas and showed up at my house in shorts, sandals, and a hoodie. It was like 30F, he said it felt like summer to him 😂
Interesting. Can relate having spent most of my life on a southern coast. One summer my parents shipped me to my uncle in Denver for a few weeks. One day we dropped by an air show. It’s summer and it’s hot (mid 90s or so) but you can’t feel it. People passing out was common enough it had an announcement.
Cut to later that day and we are up in the mountains and I’m walking through a snow bank with the same T-shirt and shorts from earlier, perfectly comfortable.
So yeah if it’s dry you can wear about anything… when it’s humid nothing seems to work be it hot or cold. If we are gonna change the climate here are my notes: I’d like 65-68degF and let’s say 45% RH. All day everyday. Make it so!
Thule?
Yep.
I left not too long ago, it’s gotten significantly warmer. Rained every week of summer. I think it hit 60 one day. The tow is closed because the permafrost underneath shifted and the building is cracking in half.
Oh, holy shit. They normally leave the foundation vents open on the buildings in the winter and close them in the spring to make sure the permafrost stays frozen.
One of my coworkers (who loves going to Thule) is a major climate change denier. Wonder how he’ll spin that when we go back in a couple years.
“The tow” isn’t ringing bells - what’s that again?
I had hoped you just missed a decimal point but it seems you did not.
I’ve lived on the coast of Australia most of my life, but I moved a good couple of hundred kilometres inland last year. I’m really looking forward to having waterfront property again pretty soon.
Hell, it’s already too hot for human habitation here most of the year. I might as well enjoy the view before I croak.
A reminder for context: it’s not summer yet in Antarctica. Summer doesn’t start until December. It’s still supposed to be cold.
instead of adding ice this winter, they lost ice. during antarctic winter.
That is not correct. The Antarctic gained far less ice, but it did gain.
https://scitechdaily.com/brrr-eaking-milestones-antarctic-sea-ice-sees-record-low-growth/
hey thanks for the details, I misread the ice shelf dropping off as total losses. it’s still the worst winter on record. https://www.reuters.com/world/no-quick-fix-reverse-antarctic-sea-ice-loss-warming-intensifies-scientists-2023-08-08/
so what are you fellas gonna do after the water wars?
Haggle.
raiders can have a little pillage as a treat
After??? Are you all planning on surviving the after wars? I’ll probably be taken out by a rusty nail after medical breaks down.
I’d be dead pretty quick without insulin assuming adhd doesn’t kill me first
Right? My RA won’t kill me without meds, but I’ll wish it would. Now my regular infections and allergic reaction on the other hand…
My migraine won’t kill me either, but being completely knocked out every five or so days isn’t going to do me much good either.
Migraines are awful. The headache isn’t even the worst part sometimes. My honest sympathies.
There’s people who see the world all lowering birth rates and predicting a heavily geriatric global population in 50 years time, and who are already starting the “live life, suicide by 60” death cult mentality. The water wars would just kill even more young people, so I’m afraid this death cult thing is going to be more fact than fiction.
I guess I need to stop being scared to get my bad teeth pulled.
Might have to do it the old fashioned way if I don’t do it now, that is if I survive it.
My god I’m miserable. What kind of coward is more frightened of dentists than this hell?
You’re not cowardly for fearing dentists. The medical industry is one of the reasons why society broke down.
As someone with t1, I’d just die in 3-4 days without medication. It’s like a handy auto-self destruct.
Time to start canning the dryland.
After? Probably still be corpsing. I just hope I can take some rich fucks with me before I go.
You can take them out now if you want to go!
Probably going to be dead after few days of war starting.
Dunno, but im going to start collecting books
I plan to volunteer with a corporation in the bio wars after that!
Fuck yeah let’s go heat death
That’s not entirely our fault, it is of course in part because of global warming, but there was a volcano that erupted that punched a hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica
The hole in the ozone layer is more our fault than the volcano’s. The volcano was what disturbed the ozone layer (it’s pretty high up there,) but the reason that the hole didn’t naturally close is that we were using CFCs in aerosol cans, and those were destroying so much ozone that the hole stuck around for 25 years and gave penguins cancer. It’s literally the only major change we have made in regards to climate change, and it worked! The hole is now almost closed. Moral of the story: you want any real action on climate change? Take UV lamps and give penguins skin cancer. Then the dumb apes will pay attention
This gave me a horrible visual of someone holding a penguin and a UV Lamp threatening oil execs in a boardroom
you could bludgeon a penguin, a puppy, a kitten, a child to death with a dildo every day in the board room and oil execs would end up cheering if they could make an extra dollar out of it.
That’s very true
Antarctica is fuuuuuuucked.
Which means we all are, but Antarctica is first. I read that Pinning Point 5 on Thwaites just failed.
What does that mean?
I found this: “With its plug still intact but threatened by warm water upwelling, the Ice Tongue prevents the majority of West Antarctica land and undersea ice from collapse and seabed displacement, respectively. The changes are profound and terrifying. The land-fast ice is gone in front of PIG and Thwaites before the melt season begins. This is not going to end well.”
What flowers? New species or one that crossed the ocean?
From the article:
Flowering plants in the Antarctic region are rapidly expanding, scientists say, indicating the continuing effects of climate change on the continent. The findings suggest we may have reached a tipping point in this fragile, remote ecosystem.
A new study of this plant expansion looked at the two flowering plants native to Antarctica, Deschampsia antarctica and Colobanthus quitensis. Researchers measured the growth and expansion of these plants on a small subantarctic island called Signy Island from 2009 to 2019.
Ok just wondering if it was some long frozen plantlife that just thawed out recently.
Nah just two full months earlier than it should have happened
Some seeds are carried place to place on the winds. They probably came from Australia or southern Chile or Argentina or some such place.
They’ve been doing that for a decade
Yeah pretty sure flowers would have already had to have been there to be blooming. Not a lot of birds migrating to Antarctica spreading seeds.
That made me curious and it looks like yes, birds do migrate there: https://polar-latitudes.com/wildlife/migratory-birds/
What about African swallows?
Well, I think in this instance, European swallows seen more likely given the distance, but either way, we’d probably need to consider them laden swallows for the purpose of our calculations…
It’s joever
