Note: this is a NASA illustration for the purpose of this story, it is not from the peer reviewed paper.
There is a a peer-reviewed study in the April 5th issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. It is by Andrew Monaghan of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO. “This is a really important exercise for these climate models,” he said.
Monaghan and his team found that while climate models projected temperature increases of 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.75 degrees Celsius) over the past century, temperatures were observed to have risen by only 0.4 F (0.2 C). “This is showing us that, over the past century, most of Antarctica has not undergone the fairly dramatic warming that has affected the rest of the globe,” Monaghan said. The gap between prediction and reality seemed to be caused by the models overestimating the amount of water vapor in the Antarctic atmosphere. ”
“The research clearly shows that you can actually slow down sea-level rise when you increase temperatures over Antarctica because snowfall increases, but warmer temperatures also have the potential to speed up sea-level rise due to enhanced melting along the edges of Antarctica,” Monaghan said.The gap between prediction and reality seemed to be caused by the models overestimating the amount of water vapor in the Antarctic atmosphere. The cold air over the southernmost continent handles moisture differently than the atmosphere over warmer regions.
But they fail to recognize that there may be a volcanic heat source as well such as the volcanic mountain range comprising much of the Antarctic Peninsula, including volcanoes such as the Seal Nunataks around the Larsen Ice shelf and under the Ross Ice Shelf here.
Volcanic Map Temperature Trends
Antarctica has no statistically significant warming for the last three decades.
There is also a writeup on this new paper at Livescience titled Cold Water Thrown on Antarctic Warming Predictions
Anyone else notice that in the junkscience plot Anthony has posted that it looks like the climate stabilized during the period 1970-2003? The annual variability seems to be greatly dampened over the variability in the early 20th Century. Looks interesting to me…
According to Spencer Weart a while back:
“Antarctica is Cold? Yeah, We Knew That”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/02/antarctica-is-cold/
“Bottom line: A cold Antarctica and Southern Ocean do not contradict our models of global warming. For a long time the models have predicted just that.”
Gavin says climate models are always wrong. The question is if they are “useful”. Do these people have no shame?
Malcolm, you have just experienced “Tamino the cherry picker”
Anthony,
Sorry if off subject and not too bright. I was looking at the US Climate Summary out today for April 08. The written summary states the average temperature was 52.5 and was the 51st warmest of 114 years. When I plugged April into the “graphs and tables chart” it indicates April’s mean temperature was 51.00 and it was ranked 29th coolest (or in warm years 85th warmest.)
Is the “average” used based on a timeframe, and is the mean just the averaging of the daily high and low? Would that be the reason for the 1.5 degree differnce?
Thanks, I really enjoy reading your site.
REPLY: It is an excellent question, but requires some detailed explanations which I can’t do just at the moment due to other obligations. Perhaps our readers can chip in.
The Realclimate thread on Antarctica is classic comedy GOLD! They had to pull references from articles written in the 1970s to support that one.
Whenever I need a good laugh, I head over to RC. Never fails….
NOAA US temp data for April 2008 is in.
“The average temperature in April 2008 was 51.0 F. This was -1.0 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 29th coolest April in 114 years.”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
and .30 degrees F colder than April 07.
Anthony,
I have problem with the graphic at the head of this story. A few months ago I linked to Columbia University website (edgcm.columbia.edu/~mankoff/StationData/), affiliated with the GISS. There is a Google Earth implementation which supports the display of the GISS stations world wide including the West Antarctic Peninsular. Stations on the Western Slope of the West Antarctic Peninsular have plateaued while stations on the Eastern Slope have recently shown profound cooling. My question is what is the time period covered by the Antarctic graphic? It is showing warming on both the Western and Eastern Slopes of the West Antarctic Peninsular.
Here are some examples of East Slope station, with complete histories, and without any “homogeneity” corrections for the resident Penguin population:
CMS_VICE.DO.Marambio
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=700890550008&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
BASE ESPERANZ
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=301889630008&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
West Slope stations such as Rothera Point and Faraday have been at a temperature plateau.
Mike
REPLY: The graphic is from NASA Earth Observatory, not GISS, it is satellite derived. GISS had nothing to do with it.
JoeH
The link you provide suggests Antarctica is warming. Strange how the sea ice around it is expanding and water in the sea is cooling. I wonder how NASA or anyone else can explain that.
hmmmm.
0,001ºC = ( Tmay – T april)
0,02ºC/ century
hmmm
A new science = Climatology quantum
Bill Derryberry,
Good points regarding how water vapor transfers heat from the surrface to the upper atmosphere. If you are so inclined, please see my comments regarding this phenomena and how it relates to distillation over at:
RSS MSU LT Global Temperature Anomaly for April 2008 – flat
Essentially, as long as the heat transfer from the surface to the upper atmosphere increases in response to greater energy absorption by greenhouse gases, then there won’t be a temperature increase at the surface. Basically, it depends on how efficient heat is transferred up into the atmopshere via water vapor and convection. I think we’ve plateaued. In other words, even if CO2 doubles and absorbs more heat, the heat transfer mechanism is robust enough to carry it out of the atmosphere (to space). Negative feedback, if you will. That’s why the SH (with its oceans) have never seen a positive temperature trend and the NH has flatlined after some initial temperature rise in the mid-90’s. My opinion, of course. But, if I’m right, how can I get a piece Al’s Nobel Prize?
I found this line in the NASA explanation quite interesting…
“The scientists estimate the level of uncertainty in the measurements is between 2-3 degrees Celsius.”
Which basically means that every the largest temperature changes shown are within the estimated error bars.
leebert, with reference to the “ozone hole”, I would suggest that it didn’t “appear” in the 1980’s, but was noticed. There is a big difference. There was a recent report that showed that the calculations which set off the whole scare now appear to be out by a factor of 10, so everything that went into producing the ban on CFCs is basically junk. Not least among the arguments to be raised in favour of this view is the point that most refrigerants would have been used in the NH, because most people live there. But there is only a minimally noticeable “hole” over the Arctic. Also CFCs are a fairly dense gas, so how do they get up into the high atmosphere and only at the centre of Antarctica? If they were so terrible, why wasn’t the ozone reducing everywhere?
My simple-minded suggestion is that there is no reason why there shouldn’t be a “hole” and every reason why there should. Ozone is NOT a constant. It is formed by the action of the UV element of sunlight and decays fairly rapidly back to oxygen. For half of the year, there is NO sunlight striking the atmosphere above Antarctica. Ergo, no ozone production, plus, there is a source of various gases that do cause fast breakdown of ozone, which is not present in the Arctic. Wait for it, wait for it, drumroll,
Volcanos!
They produce massive amount of gases which can easily penetrate to the high atmosphere where they are trapped by the Polar vortex, as I believe it is called.
Taa-daa, an ozone hole.
Obviously too simple or otherwise the bone-domes would have thought of it.
Actually, G. Harry Stine suggested much of it in an article in Analog in 1989
Anthony,
OT, but it seems that we need to reverse engineer all the technological advances we have made in the last 25 years to reduce sulphur emmissions from coal fired power plants –
“Nature 453, 212-215 (8 May 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature06960; Received 23 January 2008; Accepted 3 April 2008
‘Increasing risk of Amazonian drought due to decreasing aerosol pollution’
Peter M. Cox1,2, Phil P. Harris3, Chris Huntingford3, Richard A. Betts2, Matthew Collins2, Chris D. Jones2, Tim E. Jupp1, José A. Marengo4 & Carlos A. Nobre4
1. School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QF, UK
2. Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter EX1 3PB, UK
3. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford OX10 8BB, UK
4. Brazilian Centre for Weather Forecasting and Climate Studies, CPTEC/INPE, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Correspondence to: Peter M. Cox1,2 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to P.M.C. (Email: p.m.cox@exeter.ac.uk).
Top of page
The Amazon rainforest plays a crucial role in the climate system, helping to drive atmospheric circulations in the tropics by absorbing energy and recycling about half of the rainfall that falls on it. This region (Amazonia) is also estimated to contain about one-tenth of the total carbon stored in land ecosystems, and to account for one-tenth of global, net primary productivity1. The resilience of the forest to the combined pressures of deforestation and global warming is therefore of great concern2, especially as some general circulation models (GCMs) predict a severe drying of Amazonia in the twenty-first century3, 4, 5. Here we analyse these climate projections with reference to the 2005 drought in western Amazonia, which was associated6 with unusually warm North Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs). We show that reduction of dry-season (July–October) rainfall in western Amazonia correlates well with an index of the north–south SST gradient across the equatorial Atlantic (the ‘Atlantic N–S gradient’). Our climate model is unusual among current GCMs in that it is able to reproduce this relationship and also the observed twentieth-century multidecadal variability in the Atlantic N–S gradient7, provided that the effects of aerosols are included in the model8. Simulations for the twenty-first century using the same model3, 8 show a strong tendency for the SST conditions associated with the 2005 drought to become much more common, owing to continuing reductions in reflective aerosol pollution in the Northern Hemisphere9.”
Come to think of it why don’t we go back to using the dirtiest coal possible and that way we could both warm and unwarm the planet at the same time?
LOL.
H/T DharmaHunter on Lubos Motl’s blog for “unwarm”
“I found this line in the NASA explanation quite interesting…
The scientists estimate the level of uncertainty in the measurements is between 2-3 degrees Celsius.”
One might read that as:
“Accuracy equals plus or minus 3 degrees C”
That’s a 6 degree spread, which makes claims of 1/10 degree changes in temperature hard to swallow. If I had a voltmeter that had the same accuracy in volts, I sure as heck wouldn’t be using it to measure tenths of a volt. In fact it wouldn’t even be suitable to determine if your car charging system was working.
Also, if they say 2-3 degrees, I believe that they are guessing and don’t really know.
This is generally fascinating. With such an imbalance over such as short distance, something is going to have to dive. Consider the potential energy involved in the gradient.
They apparent getthe last fifty years, but not the last hundred:
http://www.physorg.com/news129386161.html
Notice how upset the guy gets over “deniers” using his study to show people that predictions of Antartic melting are all washed up-you know, the truth! El Gaspo to that.
John,
The text on the page Dell linked to agrees with what you got from the graph generator. Maybe they’ve changed the written summary since you looked, or maybe you looked someplace else?
Minor point—the written summary says the decadal trend is 0.1 F while the calculator says 0.08 F. Yeah, yeah, I know, sig figs.
Has anyone heard of volcanos in the ocean? I’ve been reading a site calledd -NOT BY FIRE BUT BY ICE-. It’s put out by Robert Felix. Mr Felix says there are many volcanos in the ocean a and near the atric and anartic as well .I went to ask .com and put in under water volcanos and one of the sites say there are at least 10,000 volcanos in the ocean.To me any ice melting would seem more reasonable to be caused by volcanos than exhaut from our cars that are many thousand miles away.Think about it .One of the coldest places in the world,artic and anartic ,are loosing ice because we are driving our cars and using fuel.I’ve been working at A ford dealershipfor almost 14 yearsBack in the mid 90’s when we ordered our new vehicle s they had to have the california emissions option on every vehicle we ordered .Today the standards are even more strict.My point is why are we spending all the extra money if were still the cause for the ice melt which we aren’t.Actually the ice is glaciers are growing ar record rate , except where the volcanos are.
Tony,
Well, I remember the before & after photos of the ozone hole, and of course it was a graphic w/out a ppm gradient sidebar, so I don’t know gradual or sudden the actual anomaly was like back then. FWIW, I did do a quick check & yes ozone does absorb some IR differentially from plain-old O2. Whether to accept it’s relevance to wind currents, and hence, air temperatures in the Antarctic, I don’t know.
Methyl Bromide is also an ozone antagonist and is produced by the oceans in copious quantities & far more constantly than volcanoes, has a constant impact on ozone concentrations in the Antarctic, and less so in the Arctic. Compared against refrigerants it is relatively benign but still a no-no. The sea outgases a large amount, but it’s on the Montreal/UNEP’s long list of bad chemicals (even though man-made M-Br is miniscule compared to natural).
REPLY: do you have any references to Methyl Bromide being produced naturally by the oceans?
This notion that the ozone hole is driving higher pressure gradients, leading to greater wind chilling, continues to bother me.
Is drier air (the air itself) more or less sensitive to wind-borne cooling effects?
C.f.,
If water vapor levels are much lower in the Austreal environment than previously modeled, then could another model outcome be differential chilling/warming difference due to wind?
Drier air *cools* surfaces through evaporation, no doubt. But as I understand it, evaporative cooling wouldn’t happen in the Antarctic interior during the winter (or any other time, I suppose), so the remaining question would be what cooling effect wind speed has on cold air, relative to humidity. The mechanism isn’t clear to me.
So,
either:
drier air -> more wind chilling fx-> ozone repair -> higher temperatures
or:
drier air -> less wind chilling fx -> ozone repair -> stable temperatures
http://www.junkscience.com/Ozone/ozone_seasonal.html
Milloy does a nice job of showing the cyclical nature of the Antarctic Ozone hole.
Dave Andrews,
Great post. I can never get a straight answer from anybody regarding if aerosols are increasing or decreasing in the NH. I brought this up on RC and no one answered my question.
[…] Climate Models Fail at Antarctic Warming Predictions [image] Note: this is a NASA illustration for the purpose of this story, it is not from the peer reviewed paper. There […] […]
I’ll never be able to find the reference, but I recall that folks observed the ozone hole back in the 50’s, and again in the 70’s. As folks have noted, almost all the CFC’s were produced in the NH. The jet streams don’t allow much mixing of air between the hemispheres, so how did all those CFC’s make it south ? Aantarctica does have several active volcanos, which spew substantial amounts of SO2. Maybe not as bad as CFC’s, but far more local.
With apologies to Steven Milloy, junk science at it’s best.
Hi Tony,
My old M-Br links .. dunno where they are. 😉
Google says:
http://www.google.com/search?q=methyl+bromide+ocean+ozone
The science appears to have shifted to & fro on this. I do seem to recall some discussions on one scientific panel.
I’ll throw you some old links from my attempts to reason w/ the denizenry of DU … wading through all my verbiage there’s a link in there that pertains…
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=113757&mesg_id=113978
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=113757&mesg_id=113944
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=113757&mesg_id=114034
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leebert/31