Global Warming

Using newly digitized temperature, humidity, and wind data collected from instruments aboard weather balloons between 1971 and 2003, scientists found a winter season warming throughout the Antarctic atmosphere.

The scientists estimate that atmospheric temperatures over Antarctica in the winter have risen by about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 Celsius) in the last 30 years, and the change is due in large part to greenhouse gas emissions.

“Greenhouses gases could be having a bigger impact in Antarctica than across the rest of the world .

Other studies of the region focused only on surface temperature variations and produced mixed results. One study found significant warming only on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula but not elsewhere in the southernmost continent.