Abstract
During July–August 2024, East Antarctica experienced the most intense winter heatwave in the 46-year satellite era, with regional mean surface air temperatures across Dronning Maud Land exceeding the climatological mean by more than 9°C for 17 consecutive days. To explore the physical drivers and quantify the anthropogenic contribution to this unprecedented event, we propose a multi-model, multi-method attribution framework integrating regional climate model-based storyline attribution, circulation analogues, and large-ensemble probabilistic attribution. The results show that a pronounced weakening of the stratospheric polar vortex initiated a quasi-barotropic high-pressure anomaly, which enhanced meridional heat and moisture transport and accounted for approximately 50% of the observed surface warming. Across different models and attribution methods, synthesis of the attribution results indicates that anthropogenic warming intensified the event by approximately 0.7°C and more than doubled the likelihood of such exceptional winter heatwaves in the current climate. Probabilistic attribution further indicates that, compared to a natural climate without human influence, the likelihood of such events increases from 2–3 times today to ~6 times under moderate emissions and up to 26 times under high emissions by 2100. These findings reveal how human-induced warming is transforming even the coldest regions, with implications for ice shelf stability and predictability of future Antarctic extremes.
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Data availability
All data supporting the findings of this study are openly accessible. ERA5 datasets could be retrieved at https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/reanalysis-era5-pressure-levels-monthly-means?tab=overview. JRA3Q datasets could be obtained from https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/d640000/dataaccess/#. The CMIP6 model outputs can be accessed at the ESGF portal (https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip6/). The outputs of HadGEM3-A-N216 large ensemble simulations are available from the Met Office at https://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/eucleia/data/EUCLEIA/output/MOHC/HadGEM3-A-N216. The WRF model version used for the PGW experiments is available from https://gitlabext.wsl.ch/atmospheric-models/CRYOWRF and the package used to generate the PGW deltas is available at https://github.com/sergigonzalezh/PGWERA5WRF. The daily READER datasets can be obtained from https://legacy.bas.ac.uk/met/READER/.
Code availability
All the codes for analyses and diagnostics are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the Natural Environment Research Council highlight topic grant PICANTE (NE/Y503290/1). S.G.H. is financially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) (project number 215406) and PGW analyses are produced with computational resources by the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) (projects s1242, s1308). D.B. acknowledges support from ANID-FONDECYT-1240190, ANID-FONDAP-1523A0002, and COPAS COASTAL ANID FB210021. We acknowledge Fraser Lott (Met Office) for producing and sharing the latest HadGEM3-A large ensemble dataset, and Steve Colwell (British Antarctic Survey) for providing the latest Antarctic weather station data. Moreover, we appreciate the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Working Group on Coupled Modelling and the contributing climate modeling groups for their efforts in producing and publicly sharing their model outputs (Supplementary Table 2).
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H.T., S.L., and J.M.J. conceived and designed the study. H.T. conducted the investigation, curated and analyzed the data, and drafted the manuscript. S.L. and J.M.J. contributed to methodology development and formal analysis, and oversaw project administration. S.G.H. conducted the WRF experiments and assisted with the storyline attribution. A.O. contributed substantially to the interpretation of the results and to the critical revision of the manuscript. F.E.L.O., J.A.S., K.R.C., D.B., J.L.C., C.C.S., M.L.M., and Y.S. made important contributions to the interpretation of the results and to the manuscript revisions. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.
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Tang, H., Li, S., Jones, J.M. et al. Unprecedented 2024 East Antarctic winter heatwave driven by polar vortex weakening and amplified by anthropogenic warming. npj Clim Atmos Sci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-026-01392-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-026-01392-x
