A pointer to the future?

The above were the words of our leader today- a veteran Antarctican. It is almost mid April now. The winters should have been right on us now. The place should have been covered with snow. But hey, what’s happening? The lakes here in Schirmacher Oasis usually freeze completely by February end. But this year they froze in mid March. The skuas- the eagle like predatory birds found here usually leave around mid March to March end. But they are still here. The skuas that were here all through the summers have left but some other skuas have come from elsewhere. Could this be similar to the delayed migration of birds or the early end to hibernation of polar bears or early appearance of foxes seen in the Arctic? Usually by this time Schirmacher Oasis experiences good blizzards that lead to heavy snow deposition. No exposed rocks can be seen. But this year although we have had one blizzard, but there has been minimal snow deposition. The gaps in the glacier caused by melting during the summers have not even started to fill up. Inspite of 98 knots winds there was no snow on one occasion. This is not a normal phenomenon during the winters. The Dakshin Gangotri glacier at one end of Schirmacher has been observed to be receding rapidly by Indian scientists since the early 80s. earlier the rate of recession was 0.77 meters per year but of late it is 1.1 meters per year Finally, the temperatures. This summer the temperatures went up to 8 deg Celsius, which is very unusual. This caused excessive ice melting. So much so, some of the Ilyushin- 76 flights run by ALCI had to be cancelled due to excessive ice melt on the runway (the runway here is on a 2 km high glacier). Towards the end of March, the temperatures had dropped down to -18 deg Celsius. But since then, there has been as upward trend. During the last bad weather period that ended yesterday, the temperatures rose to +0.3 deg. This at a time when they should be in the region of -20. Are these normal climatic variations or are they a part of the normal warming trend seen all over the globe. Is global warming affecting Antarctica finally? I wish I could search for answers online. But there is no internet available here.