The movement of heat ONTO Antarctica is coming from the high latitudes to the bottom of the world. The wind animation clearly illustrates the winds influence on the temperatures over the ice (click 0n).
This is mostly true over the Wedell Sea and the Ross Ice Shelf. However, that makes sense. The cooling effects of the ice is what this is all about. So the spike in temperatures with some abatement will clearly indicate an air movement with a cooling of it and causing a change to cooler air causing a sinking of the air over the ice. The Peninsula is continually hot but not sustaining the highest of temperatures either. That is because of the substantial air movement TOWARD the top of the Blue Ice.
What is very much a surprise is the sustained high temperatures over the east continent, specifically, from Enderby Land to the Emery Ice Shelf to the Shakelton Ice Shelf and to the inner continent to Mac Robertson Land. This was never estimated to be a place where heat would accumulate causing a sublimation of the ice over Eastern Antarctica. This is the three mile Blue Ice.
What is of greatest concern is the edging closer to a sustained heat mass over Antarctica and evidently even the Eastern Ice Mass. If one examines the temperature closely there is some abatement of the heat when the solar radiation sets to dusk with a cooling trend in darkness but it never completely resolves back to solidly cold temperatures.
The surface temperatures across the entire of the continent are rising. There are far more temperate areas (freezing or above) and much, much higher humidity rates. This week places normally stable are experiencing warming even in subfreezing temperatures.
Cape Ross -12 degrees C with 38% humidity at 2:38 PM with winds at 11 km/hr
McMurdo - 12.9 degrees C with 41% humidity at 5:15 AM with winds calm
Vostok - 42 degrees C with 41% humidity at 6:00 PM with winds at 17 km/hr
The surface temperatures do not reflect the air temperatures over the ice continent because as the air cools it sinks and at the surface is cooler than aloft.Sea level rise should be considered a global emergency.
