文章基本信息

标题：Dominant role of vertical air flows in the unprecedented warming on the Antarctic Peninsula in February 2020
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作者：Min Xu ; Lejiang Yu ; Kaixin Liang 等
期刊名称：Communications Earth & Environment
电子版ISSN：2662-4435
出版年度：2021
卷号：2
期号：1
页码：1-9
DOI：10.1038/s43247-021-00203-w
语种：English
出版社：Nature Research
摘要：Near-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 40-100W 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 australsummer 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. Foehn warming played a dominant role in the generation of record-high temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula in February 2020, in line with mechanisms of previous warm summer events, suggests an investigation of reanalysis data.