Heterogeneous Polar Amplification

Arctic and Antarctic climate evolution is crucial for understanding global climate dynamics. This study grounds in the framework of Gadea and Gonzalo (2020, 2025) to analyze different distributional characteristics (beyond the average) of polar temperature measurement as time series objects, enabling the definition and robust testing of polar warming, its acceleration, and amplification. Our findings provide a quantitative description of the warming processes affecting the polar regions. The research examines measurements of temperature in the Arctic (1900-2019) and the Antarctic (1960-2022). Key findings include: (i) Clear Arctic warming since 1900 across all quantiles, with more pronounced warming in lower quantiles since 1950. No significant warming was observed in Antarctica in all of the temperature quantiles; (ii) Arctic warming acceleration since 1960, particularly in lower and middle quantiles, with no apparent peak reached yet; (iii) Consistent Arctic amplification is slightly below 2 and stable across analyzed periods. Lower quantiles (corresponding with winter in the higher latitudes) show larger amplification than the mean. Since 1960, amplification has extended to upper quantiles, except the 90th and 95th percentiles; (iv) Analysis of the internal Arctic amplification shows that this is primarily a lower-quantile phenomenon, Arctic amplification is stronger in higher latitude winters and this affects the speed at which the ice in the Arctic is disappearing. The study’s amplification estimates are lower than some observational studies but align more closely with climate model projections. The paper concludes by comparing these results to the equivalent global temperature trends.