If you thought that stories about global warming and Antarctica were a lot of hot air, you'd be half right. It seems that it is not just surface temperatures that are rising and melting the Antarctic ice: temperatures in the atmosphere high above the continent are also soaring.
Although rapid warming at the surface of Antarctica has been well-documented, this is the first report of climate change much higher above the continent. What's more, it is the largest warming of its kind found anywhere on Earth (Science, vol 311, p 1914).
John Turner and colleagues of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK, monitored the temperature of the middle troposphere, at altitudes of up to 10 kilometres. They used data from 11 weather balloons stationed around the Antarctic coast between 1971 and 2003. The balloons measured air temperature, humidity and pressure.
They found that winter air temperatures over Antarctica have ...