Dominant role of vertical air flows in the unprecedented warming on the Antarctic Peninsula in February 2020

Abstract

AbstractNear-surface air temperature at the Argentinian research base Esperanza on the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula reached 18.3 °C on 6 February 2020, which is the highest temperature ever recorded on the entire Antarctic continent. Here we use weather observations since 1973 together with the ERA5 reanalysis to investigate the circulation that shaped the 2020 event, and its context over the past decades. We find that, during the 2020 event, a high-pressure ridge over the 40°-100°W sector and a blocking high on the Drake Passage led to an anticyclonic circulation that brought warm and moist air from the Pacific Ocean to the Antarctic Peninsula. Vertical air flows in a foehn warming event dominated by sensible heat and radiation made the largest contribution to the abrupt warming. A further analysis with 196 extreme warm events in austral summer between 1973 and 2020 suggests that the mechanisms behind the 2020 event form one of the two most common clusters of the events, exhibiting that most of the extreme warm events at Esperanza station are linked to air masses originating over the Pacific Ocean.