Vostok, Antarctica Suffers Coldest August Since 2002, Planes Grounded Due To The Extreme Freeze

Cap Allon

August was a frigid month across the bottom of the world, particularly at Russia’s research station Vostok.

The preliminary monthly average for August 2023 at Vostok Station has come in at -71.2C (-96.2F).

This makes for the coldest August since 2002, -71.5C (-96.7F), and also the coldest month since July 2016, -71.8C (-97.2F).

Vostok’s chill has now spilled into September, too.

On Friday, Sept 1 an anomalous minimum of -77.9C (108.2F) was reached.

Note, this reading likely won’t represent the true daily minimum. At 12Z the temperature was -77.8C (chart below). It was almost certainly colder earlier but due to a quirk of the Russian algorithm, extremes are only documented during the second half of the day.

“Winter isn’t over,” writes Stefano Di Battista on X:


Antarctica’s anomalous chill hasn’t just been confined to Vostok.

McMurdo Station, a U.S. research facility located on the southern tip of Ross Island, is also enduring biting cold.

This time of year usually sees the commencement of operation ‘Winfly’ — a transition period between the winter and summer seasons when a quick succession of airplanes deliver a host of new workers, researchers and equipment to the station.

Last week, however, Winfly was delayed due to a bout of record cold temperatures, with all planes grounded for at least a week.

Scientists and support staff disembark an Airbus A319 at Pegasus airfield. During the week of Winfly, the station population nearly doubles from its winter low [Rebekah Osgood].


The data suggest Antarctica is cooling.

Temperatures at the bottom of the world have routinely broken all-time records in recent months/years.

Antarctica endured its coldest-ever ‘coreless winter’ (April-Sept) in 2021, it then shivered through practically all of 2022, posting colder-than-average month after colder-than-average month, including the coldest November since 1987 and the latest -60C (-76F) on record — with the year culminating in the South Pole Station averaging just -49.5C (-51.7F); -0.4C below the norm.

And now we see the cooling has spilled in 2023, too.

Back in March, the Antarctic continent suffered its coldest ever reading so early into a year; in July it logged Earth’s lowest temperature since 2017, in mid-August it was breaking multiple all-time cold records at stations across the continent, and most recently, Vostok posts its coldest month of August since 2002, with September starting exceptionally cold.

But “Ice loss!” scream the propagandized masses upon the direction of a band of group-thinking pop-scientists.

And while this year’s sea ice is indeed low, this ‘blip’ requires far deeper digging than the catastrophists will ever want to admit–or are likely even capable of undertaking. Take the wild swings in Antarctica’s sea ice in recent years (chart below): From a record-smashing high in 2014 to a new low in 2017, then back to the average in 2020 — Antarctic sea ice, for whatever reason, is prone to extreme variability.

Visible: fluctuations of annual Antarctic sea ice extent through the satellite record [NSIDC].


And so it stands, there is far more at play when it comes to Antarctic sea ice than temperature alone.

A low solar activity-induced meridional jet stream flow is one forcing playing havoc down there, impacting ocean currents and wind patterns; an uptick in volcanic activity, including the record-high mesospheric Hunga Tonga eruption, is likely another.

The climate system is not a simple one, nor is it a well understood one.

Don’t let anyone fool you otherwise.

There is still much up for debate.

Antarctica Plunges To -83.2C (-117.8F) — Earth’s Lowest Temperature Since 2017; Record-Challenging Cold Sweeps Europe; + South America And South Africa Cool
Move Over Polar Bears, “Baby Penguins Are Dying”
Calling Out The Climate Scam: A Princeton Professor, An MIT Scientist, And A Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist…
facebookShare on Facebook
TwitterRepost on X
Please help keep Electroverse online, consider becoming a Patreon.
Become a patron at Patreon!