So suggested a headline in Bloomberg News early last month. What to make of this? For one thing Bloomberg News can no longer be regarded as a sterling source for news after its owner has thrust himself into the 2020 Presidential race.

Still the information in the piece needs some careful examination.

Right out of the gate please notice that the site where the temperature record was broken is not the same as that where the photograph was taken dating to 2008.

In material fact, the distance between the location of the “new record” near the northern-most tip of the Antarctic Peninsula that protrudes to well north of the Antarctic Circle toward Argentina and is therefore not even considered a polar area and that of Cape Folger on the Budd Coast of East Antarctica is a very long walk indeed.

Ms. Lombrana places herself in league with many warmist advocates by not having made clear the distinction in time and space.

Deeper into the article it is revealed that warmer temperatures had been recorded in 1971 and 1982. So what is implied to be an unprecedented event is in reality not.

Human occupancy on Antarctica on a continual basis has existed for a relatively limited duration compared with geologic time scales–even a recent one.  It is very possible, even likely, that at times before the southern continent was discovered in the early 19th Century, temperatures had risen on occasion to a level above the current record, and almost certainly did so during the  beginnings of the Holocene Period (circa, 10,000 year BP) when global temperatures persisted above that of the Modern Warm Period. Since that time proxy temperature data indicate that global temperatures have generally trended downward throughout most of the current Holocene.

A check of sporadic temperature data recorded at the various bases will tell us nothing about the millennial-scale patterns that can be inferred only through careful analysis of cored ice (using oxygen isotope ratios) such as that conducted at the Russian Vostok station.

A 3 deg C rise in average temperature inland (at a robust – 60 C) where ambient air temperatures do not rise above freezing will have a diminimis effect on the rate of sublimation of surface snow and ice or glacial flow in mile-thick ice beneath the surface. To the contrary, added ice accumulation tends to accelerate glacial flow. Lesser ice depth would tend to slow it down. Surely the experts employed at the various observation stations must know this. Bloomberg editorial staff share some responsibility in not adequately fact checking the article before publication.

Featured image by Torsten Dederichs on Unsplash.