Katabatic winds are heated adiabatically which is why the air and the valleys are dry. They may be cold, but they still tend to end up warmer than prevailing temperatures when they are most intense, especially in the winter. It is a local effect only to the extent that katabatic winds are limited by topography. Any short term warming may be a result of variations in the intensity of these winds from year to year, especially if weather stations happen to be located nearby.

Anyways, here is that paper.

http://www.glaciers.pdx.edu/fountain/MyPapers/NylenEtAl2004.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katabatic_wind

Although, it does raise the question that if katabatic winds can produce substantial differences in temperatures as a result of local topography, then siting of the small number of, East Antarctica in particular, weather stations may well result in measuring trends in a local phenomena (katabatic winds) rather than ‘global’ climate effects.

A really great classification system given that the actual measured range can be from +130F to -140 F, or +60C to -90C or 150 C (270F).

And just a glance at the color map demonstrates clearly why it isn’t nice to ignore the Nyquist Sampling Criterion.

So I guess it is nice to to have a system for describinh the weather on the nightly news; but anybody who thinks +72 F is hot is just plain nuts. I think it was around 90 today out in our parking lot; and it didn’t seem the boiling cauldron people think.

The warmth I could feel was the direct IR radiation from the blacktop parking lot, and my lungs don’t care for the vertical hot air currents; but I’m supersensitive to that; but no way I would describe it as hot.

George

pft, what you say is true. However, to be warming toward the coast would require the lapse rate of the katabatic winds to be greater than temperature differential due to altitude, and that seems not to be the case.”

Phillip, The followng paper is available online, no time to find link:

“Climatology of katabatic winds in the McMurdo dry valleys,
southern Victoria Land, Antarctica, Thomas H. Nylen and Andrew G. Fountain Department of Geology and Department of Geography, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA, Peter T. Doran
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Received 1 July 2003; revised 16 October 2003; accepted 3 December 2003; published 14 February 2004.

[1] Katabatic winds dramatically affect the climate of the McMurdo dry valleys, Antarctica. Winter wind events can increase local air temperatures by 30
C. The frequency of katabatic winds largely controls winter (June to August) temperatures, increasing 1
C per 1% increase in katabatic frequency, and it overwhelms the effect of topographic
elevation (lapse rate). Summer katabatic winds are important, but their influence on summer temperature is less. The spatial distribution of katabatic winds varies significantly. Winter events increase by 14% for every 10 km up valley toward the ice sheet, and summer events increase by 3%. The spatial distribution of katabatic frequency seems to be partly controlled by inversions………..Although the onset and termination of the katabatic winds are typically abrupt, elevated air temperatures remain for days afterward. We estimate that current frequencies of katabatic winds increase annual average temperatures by 0.7
to 2.2
C, depending on location. Seasonally, they increase (decrease) winter average temperatures (relative humidity) by 0.8
to 4.2
(
1.8 to
8.5%) and summer
temperatures by 0.1
to 0.4
C (
0.9% to
4.1%). Long-term changes of dry valley air temperatures cannot be understood without knowledge of changes in katabatic.”

The study and effect was observed near the coast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mcmurdo_sound_USGS_map.jpg

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16988-why-antarctic-ice-is-growing-despite-global-warming.html

pointing out that the antarctic peninsula isn’t like the rest of Antarctica…

“In a new study, Turner and colleagues show how the ozone hole has changed weather patterns around Antarctica. These changes have drawn in warm air over the Antarctic Peninsula in West Antarctica and cooled the air above East Antarctica.”

I like the ending “”Over the next 50 to 100 years, the ozone hole will heal,” says Turner. “At the same time, greenhouse gases will rise. In next decade or so we should see sea ice plateauing and then decreasing massively if greenhouse gases continue to increase.”

I thought CO2/AGW caused ozone depletion, so how is this healing (sometime in the misty future) gonna happen?

Ie, katabatic winds are colder than otherwise prevailing temperatures toward the coast.

I just lost the link and my battery is about to run out. So you will have to take my word.

However, other effects may be noticeable. Hot magma rises, forcing up rocks above it. This could dislodge chunks of ice sheets that apparently are anchored to rocks that the ice has depressed below sea level. Maybe some portions of ice will become dislodged and slide off the building mound. Similarly, lava and hot springs might melt those ice-rock joins, letting the ice float free.

Much depends on time, first (these are generally slow processes) and second, the composition of the volcanism. Basalts don’t give much explosive activity (the magma has little silica in it, and so is relatively fluid). Andesitic to rhyolitic volcanism – much more siliceous – can result in explosive events, which might blast out a chunk of ice of considerable proportions.

“Antarctic weather is dominated by 2 different effects. One is the intense low pressure systems that constantly circle Antartica. The other is the very cold, very dry katabatic winds that blow out from the interior of Antarctica.”

http://profhorn.aos.wisc.edu/wxwise/AckermanKnox/chap12/katabatic_winds.html

If we’re going to reclassify, shouldn’t there be a primary category F (temperatures below freezing almost year round) with subgroups M (maritime-high rainfall) and D(dry continental interior). These zones might also be applied to Greenland, depending on the precipitation pattern; anyone know when & how much snow falls on interior Greenland?

I agree that to get an idea/estimation of the Earth’s climate trends and variability (or maybe Antarctica’s) one would use all the data. But to calculate an estimated temperature at point x, 200 miles thataway from measurements at points y and z, which is what Steig is doing, I think it wrong to mix the data if they are indeed different. The much higher temperatures measured on the Peninsula are relatively localized; they don’t have any effect on the temperatures way up on that mountain of ice called East Ant. Yet Steig’s approach smears a component of those warm results all across the continent. It’s no wonder Antarctica is heating up! ;)