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Scot Jackson / National Science Foundation
It's busy at the South Pole in December and especially this year, the centennial of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen's trek to the South Pole. Ceremonies included this one on Dec. 14 where Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg presented a Norwegian flag to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.
It's being called a Christmas miracle: the South Pole, where temperatures this time of year (the southern hemisphere's summer) tend to be around minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit, set a record high on Christmas Day with a whopping 9.9F -- that's right, 9.9, not 99.
On top of that, it also snowed on Christmas Day. What's odd about that? The pole actually gets little in the way of snowflakes -- it's one of the driest places on Earth with just .20 inches a year -- and most of the "snow" there is actually ice from over the years, some of which scatters with the winds.
"We like to call this our little Christmas miracle that we ended up getting snow and getting a record high for the books," Phillip Marzette, senior meteorologist at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, told The Antarctic Sun, a newspaper at the main U.S. base of McMurdo.
The Antarctic Sun
This South Pole Station announced the record warmth on its inhouse video system.
And no, the record heat is not a case of global warming (though some coastal areas of Antarctica are seeing rapid glacial melt tied to rising sea temperatures).
Winds came in from an unusual direction on Christmas Day, Marzette said, bringing with them relative warmth that started to raise temperatures rapidly at 6 a.m.
The warmth was only around for the day, and within a few days it was back to normal: minus 15F or so.
So what was the previous South Pole high? 7.5 F, set on Dec. 27, 1978. As for a record South Pole low (data goes back to 1957), that was minus 117F on June 23, 1982.
Some other fun facts:
- Warmest temperature recorded anywhere on the continent: 59F at a research base in the McMurdo Dry Valleys on Jan. 5, 1974.
- Coldest temperature (not just on Antarctica but worldwide): minus 128.6F at Russia's Vostok Station on July 21, 1983.
Leave a Comment:
I think we should send al gore down there for a few years to study it.
God has been trying to WAKE up the world since 1/1/11 began, with all of the strange occurances. I know the lunatic "harold camping" has turned the world OFF to the thought of a REAL Return of Jesus Christ, BUT NEVERTHELESS He IS Truly Returning ANY SECOND OF ANY DAY. This bizzare weather is just another example. The time to come to Jesus is SHORT. The time to find Him and be prepared for His IMMINENT Return is NOW.!!!
LOL.
LOL, too.
Deranged fantasists have been preaching that Bronze Age drivel for 2,000 years. Still wrong.
Uumm, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it say in the bible that not even the angels in heaven know when jebus is going to return?? But, yet YOU know that he's coming "any second of any day"??? Forgot to take our meds today, did we?
it was the same type of people who told Noah he was a fool for building the ark that are are now denying the FACTS about catastorphic climate change. Ask the civilizations that lived along the coastal regions of the world when the last ice age ended how they are fairing today, oh thats right you can't, THEY ARE ALL DEAD.
Me, I'm buying a boat.
Noah never made it to the Garden of Eden. His boat fell off the end of the flat earth.
And, the reason those people are all dead is maybe, just maybe because the end of the last ice-age ended 10k or so years ago???
seeing you mentioned al gore how much time is left on his clock marking the day of destruction or the point of no return sorry to stray too far from the topic here
It seems that people washed plenty of hogs on Fri Dec 30, 2011.
Still cold enough for Mitt to wear his magic Mormon underwear. Hope Mitt doesn't strap his dog to the roof again.
It is not a Christmas miracle. There were no flying people with wings on blowing horns to make the miracle, statues of Mary were not crying blood and Jesus never arose to perform the miracles. It was just part of Global Warming, something the right wing radical cracked teanuts do not believe in. These anti-science nuts have got to be kicked out of congress and their king, Groper Nutquist, has to be overthrown.
In view of the Global Warming issue I am going to buy a Chevy Volt .
Just like the other 192 people did this year.
Chevy only has about 100K left Any takers?
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
The Earth has been getting warmer for 12,000 years. Why should it stop now?
I'm with ye George! I was there in '61-'62, saw the darkness, cold & light again, then darkness once more before I left. I've never forgotten the place. I remember sleeves rolled up in-15F, whiteouts, the bay ice go out, saw ice "calfing", a wonderous place! I'm in my 70s now, have seen a lot of "climate change". Like George, we must do an about-face with how we are trashing this once blue planet!
torgenes, that was the only intelligent post I read here. Cudos.
I don't believe that this one event is evidence of global warming, but Faux News always pipes in whenever there is a blizzard to refute the science...Are those crickets I hear?
The only 'miracle' is that no one has blamed Obama for it....yet !!
Just wondering why it would be called a Christmas miracle when we are in absolute danger of losing our glaciers to begin with...
Minus 117 degrees F, that is cold enough to freeze CO2 out of the air! It sounds like they had a nice balmy 9.9 degree F Christmas with snow. Meanwhile, I think it's cold when it hits below 20 degrees F here.
Ice core will provide temp. info over time.