<p>During July–August 2024, East Antarctica experienced the most intense winter heatwave in the 46-year satellite era, with regional mean surface air temperatures across Dronning Maud Land exceeding the climatological mean by more than 9°C for 17 consecutive days. To explore the physical drivers and quantify the anthropogenic contribution to this unprecedented event, we propose a multi-model, multi-method attribution framework integrating regional climate model-based storyline attribution, circulation analogues, and large-ensemble probabilistic attribution. The results show that a pronounced weakening of the stratospheric polar vortex initiated a quasi-barotropic high-pressure anomaly, which enhanced meridional heat and moisture transport and accounted for approximately 50% of the observed surface warming. Across different models and attribution methods, synthesis of the attribution results indicates that anthropogenic warming intensified the event by approximately 0.7°C and more than doubled the likelihood of such exceptional winter heatwaves in the current climate. Probabilistic attribution further indicates that, compared to a natural climate without human influence, the likelihood of such events increases from 2–3 times today to ~6 times under moderate emissions and up to 26 times under high emissions by 2100. These findings reveal how human-induced warming is transforming even the coldest regions, with implications for ice shelf stability and predictability of future Antarctic extremes.</p>

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Unprecedented 2024 East Antarctic winter heatwave driven by polar vortex weakening and amplified by anthropogenic warming

  • Haosu Tang,
  • Sihan Li,
  • Julie M. Jones,
  • Sergi González-Herrero,
  • Andrew Orr,
  • Friederike E. L. Otto,
  • James A. Screen,
  • Kyle R. Clem,
  • Deniz Bozkurt,
  • Jennifer L. Catto,
  • Charlie C. Suitters,
  • Michelle L. Maclennan,
  • Yiming Sun

摘要

During July–August 2024, East Antarctica experienced the most intense winter heatwave in the 46-year satellite era, with regional mean surface air temperatures across Dronning Maud Land exceeding the climatological mean by more than 9°C for 17 consecutive days. To explore the physical drivers and quantify the anthropogenic contribution to this unprecedented event, we propose a multi-model, multi-method attribution framework integrating regional climate model-based storyline attribution, circulation analogues, and large-ensemble probabilistic attribution. The results show that a pronounced weakening of the stratospheric polar vortex initiated a quasi-barotropic high-pressure anomaly, which enhanced meridional heat and moisture transport and accounted for approximately 50% of the observed surface warming. Across different models and attribution methods, synthesis of the attribution results indicates that anthropogenic warming intensified the event by approximately 0.7°C and more than doubled the likelihood of such exceptional winter heatwaves in the current climate. Probabilistic attribution further indicates that, compared to a natural climate without human influence, the likelihood of such events increases from 2–3 times today to ~6 times under moderate emissions and up to 26 times under high emissions by 2100. These findings reveal how human-induced warming is transforming even the coldest regions, with implications for ice shelf stability and predictability of future Antarctic extremes.