The extraordinary March 2022 East Antarctica heatwave

Between March 15-19th 2022, East Antarctica experienced an unprecedented heatwave with widespread 30-45° C temperature anomalies across the ice sheet. This record-shattering event saw numerous monthly temperature records being broken including a new all-time temperature record of -9.4 °C on March 18th at Concordia station despite March typically being a transition month to the Antarctic coreless winter. The driver for these temperature extremes was an unprecedently intense atmospheric river (AR) advecting heat and moisture deep into the Antarctic interior. The scope of the temperature records spurred a large, diverse collaborative effort to study the heatwave’s meteorological drivers, impacts, and historical climate context using an array of observations, models, and analysis techniques.