Three years ago, on this day, March 18th, 2022,
On 18 March, 2022, scientists at the Concordia research station on the east Antarctic plateau documented a remarkable event. They recorded the largest jump in temperature ever measured at a meteorological centre on Earth. According to their instruments, the region that day experienced a rise of 38.5C above its seasonal average: a world record. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/06/simply-mind-boggling-world-record-temperature-jump-in-antarctic-raises-fears-of-catastrophe
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 418ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that we’re starting to see, we have been seeing for 20 or 30 years, not just weather events that people thought wouldn’t happen, but that couldn’t happen. In some cases, perhaps many cases, that’s based on our overconfidence in our models and our intellects and our inability to see ramifications at a distance without going or mystic woo- woo New Age.
What I think we can learn from this is that we don’t know nearly as much as we think we do about these absurdly complex and I mean complex. Not complicated. I mean complex systems and systems of systems.
But against that backdrop, we do know that if you pour billions and billions of tons of carbon dioxide, accumulating into more than 2 trillion of tons into the atmosphere,in a geological eye blink, there are going to be some interesting consequences.
What happened next Antarctica continues to warm. The planet continues to warm. We seem to be off the leash.
coNTExt – John Mercer article in Nature 1978
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
March 18, 1958 – Military man spots carbon dioxide problem
March 18, 1968 – Bobby Kennedy vs Gross National Product
March 18, 1971 – “Weather modification took a macro-pathological turn”