Antarctic Chill Sweeps Australia; Patagonia’s Deep Freeze Persists; Cloud Loss Drives 80% Of Earth’s Solar Gain; + Eclipse Triggers Grid Warnings Across Europe
Europe is issuing grid warnings ahead of today’s solar eclipse, with up to 9.7 GW of solar generation expected to vanish.
Antarctic Chill Sweeps Australia
A sharp polar outbreak has swept southern Australia, delivering near-decade cold in the west and fresh heavy snow across the Alps.
Perth dropped to 2.5C (36.5F) Tuesday morning—its coldest August reading in nine years.
Bunbury fell to 0.8C (33.4F), its coldest August morning in a decade; Pearce reached 1.5C (34.7F), its lowest for the month in 11 years; while York dipped to -1C (30.2F).
The cold then pushed east, bringing another round of alpine snow.
Mt Hotham picked up 13 cm (5.1 inches) in 24 hours and 31 cm (12.2 inches) over the past week.
Perisher has also received 31 cm in seven days, while Thredbo added further snow Tuesday night as freezing conditions persisted across the higher peaks.
At Spencers Creek, there was no measurable snow on July 1—only the second such occurrence in the entire record. But now, by Aug 12, depth has rebounded to 96 cm (37.8 inches), already exceeding some full-season peaks, including 1982 and 2006.
Australia’s alpine winter has staged an impressive turnaround.
Patagonia’s Deep Freeze Persists
The severe cold gripping southern South America has refused to let up, with Patagonia plunging deep below freezing again.
At least 15 Argentine cities were below freezing between 8 and 9am Tuesday, spanning Santa Cruz, Chubut, Mendoza, Río Negro, La Pampa and Buenos Aires.
The SMN maintained cold-extreme alerts across eight provinces.
Across the Andes, Chile’s Aysén Region remained locked in an even deeper freeze.
After Balmaceda crashed to -17.5C (0.5F) on Aug 10—one of its coldest August temperatures in the station’s history—Aug 11 then plunged Coyhaique to -10.3C (13.5F)—just shy of the station’s all-time low set on Aug 7, 1975 (books back to 1952).
The cold substantially exceeded DMC expectations, which called for -7C to -3C (19.4F to 26.6F).
The freeze was still entrenched into early Aug 12, with DMC’s live network showing readings well below freezing.
Southern Chile and Argentina have been repeatedly hammered by snow and severe freezes in recent weeks.
Cloud Loss Drives 80% Of Earth’s Solar Gain
A new paper in Environmental Research Letters points to declining cloud reflectivity as the main driver of Earth’s increasing absorption of solar energy.
Satellite observations show Earth’s energy imbalance has roughly doubled since the early 2000s, from about 0.5 W/m² to around 1 W/m².
