From the Australian. (h/t to Andrew Bolt)
With weather stations like the ones below, it might be a bit hard to separate the real temperature signal of Antarctica from your local UHI. I wonder how much more cooling would be evident in the data had the weather stations been placed away from the “living pods”?
This picture on a postage stamp from Australia, celebrating the Australian Antarctic Territory in 1997, may help settle the issue. Note the Stevenson Screen near the “living pod” on the right.
Here is the larger photo of the first day of issue card, the Stevenson Screen is also just visible above the snowbank in the lower right. Rather close to human habitation I’d say. Looks like its in the middle of a small AHI (Antarctic Heat Island).
Click for larger image
They have propane heat, apparently:
Here is what Australia’s Mawson Station looked like circa 1956-1957:
And here is what Mawson station looks like today, as of Feb09. It appears they dumped the “living pods”. Maybe a little “urban growth” going on there?
Here’s another picture of a Stevenson Screen close to a building in Antarctica, from the British Antarctic Survey:
![[10004058]](http://www.photo.antarctica.ac.uk/external/guest/image/water/70/10004058)
Location: Fossil Bluff, Alexander Island
Season: 1994/1995
Photographer: Pete Bucktrout
THE Bureau of Meteorology has backed down from a claim that temperatures at Australia’s three bases in Antarctica have been warming over the past three decades.
A senior bureau climatologist had accused The Weekend Australian of manufacturing a report that temperatures were cooling in East Antarctica, where Australia’s Mawson, Davis and Casey bases are located.
The trend of temperatures and ice conditions in Antarctica is central to the debate on global warming because substantial melting of the Antarctic ice cap, which contains 90 per cent of the world’s ice, would be required for sea levels to rise.
While calvings from ice shelves in parts of West Antarctica have generated headlines, evidence has emerged that temperatures are cooling in the east of the continent, which is four times the size of West Antarctica.
Contrary to widespread public perceptions, the area of sea ice around the continent is expanding.
The Weekend Australian reported last month a claim by Bureau of Meteorology senior climatologist Andrew Watkins that monitoring at Australia’s Antarctic bases since the 1950s indicated temperatures were rising. A study was then published by the British Antarctic Survey that concluded the ozone hole was responsible for the cooling and expansion of sea ice around much of the continent.
The head of the study project, John Turner, said at the time that the section of Antarctica that included the Australian bases was among the areas that had cooled.
Dr Watkins said The Weekend Australian had misrepresented the results of the BAS study, which made no findings about temperatures at Australian bases.
When it was pointed out to Dr Watkins that Professor Turner had been quoted directly, Dr Watkins said his bureau, and not the BAS, was the agency collecting temperature data.
“You kept going until you got the answer you wanted,” Dr Watkins said.
“You were told explicitly that the data collected by the Bureau of Metereology at the Australian bases shows a warming for maximum temperatures at all bases, and minimum temperatures at all but Mawson.”
However, Professor Turner told The Weekend Australian the data showed a cooling of the East Antarctica coast associated with the onset of the ozone layer from 1980 onwards. Professor Turner said the monthly mean temperatures for Casey station from 1980 to 2005 showed a cooling of 0.45C per decade. In autumn, the temperature trend has been a cooling of 0.93C per decade.
“These fairly small temperature trends seem to be consistent to me with the small increase in sea ice extent off the coast,” he said.
Dr Watkins did not dispute the figures referred to by Professor Turner.
Referring to the bureau’s data collection since the 1950s, Dr Watkins said Professor Turner’s figures were “only half of the full data set”.
However, Dr Watkins admitted that analysis of the data might show “an ozone-induced cooling trend in the latter half of the record” — a reference to the past three decades.
Dr Watkins declined to release the temperature data to The Weekend Australian. He said it had still to be fully analysed by the bureau.
Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce said he hoped all government agencies would co-operate in helping to inform the global warming debate.
“These agencies need to be able to dispense the facts without fear or bias,” he said.
Scott Brady (07:14:26) : ozone hole ?
For me, this is another of those issues where “the science is not well understood.” Translation, “We don’t have a clue!”
I think there are enough halogens naturally occurring in the atmosphere that the effort to ban CFCs to save the ozone should be classes as a scam.
If that is so, then the ozone hole is something that was, is, and will be part of Earth’s atmosphere. There are several research efforts underway. One recent report:
Correlation between Cosmic Rays and Ozone Depletion
http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~qblu/Lu-2009PRL.pdf
This claims a starting date of 1980 or 1981 (not too clear) but this may be looking back after the “discovery” by the British Antarctic Survey in 1985.
http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/breakthroughs/ozone/welcome.html
“Dr Watkins declined to release the temperature data to The Weekend Australian.”
That’s a surprise.
AFAIK the seasonal ozone depletion (AKA ozone hole) was measured by British scientists in the Antarctic in the 1950s before CFC’s were in widespread use.
There’s also a problem with the chemical model of CFC causing ozone depletion as one of the crucial reactions runs too slow by an order of magnitude when tested in the lab under real world conditions.
Ron de Haan (12:37:29) :
“The trend you describe obviously originates from your mindset, obsessed from catestrophic events leading to “the end game”.”
Ron – you make a good point, but actually I can hardly blame folks like Francis for thinking this way, given that the MSM, Al Gore, Mark Serreze, etc. pump them with the AGW mantra 24/7. Common sense doesn’t seem to matter, and in time people can begin to believe all sorts of doomsday scenarios. What I can’t understand is why supposedly smart people in government labs and academia just sit by idly while people (many in position of power) make the most distorted and outright false statements about climate change without correction. Anthony needs to post the President’s statement about climate change (see the link below) to provide but one example of how out of control the whole global warming movement has become.
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2009/04/missouri-april-29-2009-president-obama.html
For the sake of WUWT’s credibility, I recommend that the following comment be removed from the tail-end of the post in which it appears:
“Some Psychiatrists have linked this kind of thinking to a “depression” which can easily be treated with medicine.”
Bill Illis (05:29:05)
“Even a climate researcher should be able to admit that.”
Yes, there is clearly a need to scrutinize their bosses.
I will share an anecdote:
I once had a contract that consisted of spending months doing nothing but cooking data.
“Dr Watkins declined to release the temperature data to The Weekend Australian.”
I guess you just have to look at it from Watkins POV. If he releases the unadjusted data and the people of the world learn the truth, what will happen to the planned EcoShangriLa? By applying a little smoke here, a few mirrors over there, the data, although, second, or even third hand can be made to support the new world view and it will then fit in!
Dr. Watkins believes that his second-hand smoke (and mirrors) will save the planet from humanity…
Re: Mike Bryant (16:51:54)
All one has to do is:
1) Pick a few high observations at one end of a time series.
2) Pick a few low observations at the other end.
3) Label them as suspect.
[There are any manner of potential justifications — they can be made to appear sufficiently mathematically-sophisticated as to cause (some) auditors to abandon a suspicious trail.]
I’m not saying this is what is happening in this particular case, but I am saying I’ve seen “odd” examples of what I call “seesaw” adjustments (…so now you see what I wanted you to saw).
All this does is stir up a hornet’s nest of mistrust, effectively neutralizing the whole discussion about climate.
It has been refreshing to see that people participating in this forum (generally) don’t have wool over their eyes.
Some of you have posted some really great comments in this particular thread.
Thank you.
A bit OT but while we have been concentrating on the Antarctic glaciers, we have not been getting any info published on the mountain glaciers. The the world glacier monitoring body: http://www.wgms.ch/ is calling for 2006 and 2007 data! Surely you must know how far the glaciers have shrunk by the end of the melt season. The site is railing on about disappearing glaciers while, creeping up on them over the last couple of years are reports of glaciers growing in mass in a growing number of places. Looking at their latest report (which goes up to end of 2005), one can see that durng the period 1960 to 1990, there were more growing glaciers than during the period from from 1850 to the mid 1900s, unless I’m misunderstanding the graph: http://www.grid.unep.ch/glaciers/pdfs/5.pdf and it seems likely that we will see advancing glaciers outnumbering shrinking ones again over the next 10 to 20 years of global cooling. Its already started in Norway, Alaska (first time in 250 years), N.Z. and when they finally get dug out of the snow in the Alps, the beginning of the turnaround is likely to start there too. I don’t have links handy for Alaska, Norway and N.Z. but it is easy to google it. I’m sure there will be a post on this subject when the 2009 data come out.
Gary that is a great observation… there is no new data on glaciers but snow has been going crazy! I can’t even find new data on Mount Kilimanjaro… and when the television folks were to trek up there… they didn’t make it. I wonder why.
The glaciers are making a comeback, I’ll wager. The only place I have seen anything about glaciers is here…
http://www.iceagenow.com/List_of_Expanding_Glaciers.htm
scroll down…
Bill Strouss (08:50:19),that is an interesting quote about radiant heat effecting Antartic temperature readings.
I just wonder if radiant or convective heat is having an effect on the Stevenson screens?.
I also wonder if there is reliance on just one measuring device?.
Two in different locations may give very interesting results.This would be my choice if I had to set up the measuring equipment, simply use the one with the lower reading.
But would I still keep my job?
Ron de Haan (12:37:29) and Squidly and Frank K. and Paul Vaughan
THERMAL EXPANSION (1.6 mm/yr)
I’m a little skeptical of your suggestion that sea levels have stopped rising. The cooler La Nina (just over) temperatures recently might have slowed the thermal expansion a little. But the air to water heat transfer is a slow process; so there is a backlog of warming that should be continuing.
There’s just an inevitability here. Increased temperatures lead to thermal expansion and sea level rise. Just as evaporation is followed by precipitation.
GLACIERS and ICE CAPS (.77mm/yr)
They’re still melting.
GREENLAND ICE SHEET (.21 mm/yr)
“…estimated monthly changes in the mass of Greenland’s ice sheet suggest that it is melting at a rate of… …46.7 cubic miles per year…Grace(Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite.’ Wikipedia
ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET (.21 mm/yr, plus or minus .35 mm/yr)
“The difference between these estimates from totally indepent techniques reflects the uncertainties in these difficult measurements; nevertheless, on balance, they indicate a recent shift to a net loss of Antarctic ice and suggest that the losses may be accelerating. Similar conclusions result from studies of Antarctic Peninsula glaciers, indicating that they are melting much faster than previously predicted and are probably already contributing significantly to sea level rise.” http://www.cmar.csiro.au (Hey, you wouldn’t want to read my summary of the muddle)
I probably could get depressed contemplating the speculation: will the additional snow on East Antarctica increase the rate of flow of the ice to the sea.
TOTAL (2.8 mm/yr) Sea level rise for 1993-2003
Ultimately from IPCC 2007…included for relative comparison.
So, anyway, you’re telling me that sea levels have now stopped rising.
Where can I read about this?
Dr Watkins has made a huge mistake. The reporters at The Australian (and other papers) will now really get suspicious and chase him to the end of the Earth. He ain’t got a chance! LOL
“So, anyway, you’re telling me that sea levels have now stopped rising.
Where can I read about this?”
Francis – have a look here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/06/sea-level-graphs-from-uc-and-some-perspectives/#more-6827
Looks to me like the trend has flattened since 2006. Note the noisiness of the data as well. Now, think to yourself – is this the trend you would expect if the arctic or antarctic ice were “melting” away at an accelerating rate?
“GLACIERS and ICE CAPS (.77mm/yr)
“They’re still melting.”
…and refreezing in the winter…every year…just like they always have…and always will. Of course there will be natural variations from year to year in glacier sizes and arctic/antarctic ice thickness, but if you go back hundreds and thousands of years, these variations have taken place regardless of our presence or absence.
“I probably could get depressed contemplating the speculation: will the additional snow on East Antarctica increase the rate of flow of the ice to the sea.”
Why are you getting depressed over this? This is precisely what those in the AGW movement want you to do – they want you feel as if YOU are to blame for something which is largely unrelated to your existence on the Earth. There are much more important things in this world to be depressed about – poverty, disease, malnutrition, war. Being fooled into supporting Cap and Trade and other AGW schemes based on sloppy and incomplete science will do nothing to solve those problems. To me, it all about priorities – I rather spend my money and time helping the poor and hungry rather than helping to fund Al Gore’s next eco-yacht.
vg (19:26:50)
“Dr Watkins has made a huge mistake. The reporters at The Australian (and other papers) will now really get suspicious and chase him to the end of the Earth. He ain’t got a chance! LOL”
Maybe he’s a skeptic strategically employing subversive reverse psychology?….
…With the level of the stakes, who knows who’s in control? … counting chickens before hatched, … resting on laurels…. (watch your back)
Maybe he’ll roll with the punches and do what is convenient? (lot’s of people do….)
Let’s see what he does, which way he spins … (maybe an update story down the road….)
Re Mike Bryant (16:51:54) : 2.05.2009
“Dr Watkins declined to release the temperature data to The Weekend Australian.”
The Weekend Australian reported can go to an outlet and obtain a BOM compilation on CD that reports the temperature data. Day by day, maximum and minimum, at the several Antarctic bases, with stops and starts over the years. If the BOM are backing off from the veracity of data, then plausibly they are knowingly selling a defective product.
The reporter has been saved the effort. I posted some of the data above at Geoff Sherrington (06:36:07) : 2.05.2009. It’s the same data.
For those with a forensic mind, there are several sources of data reports and some type of major discrepancy seems to happen in year 2007, which reports a lot hotter that any other year at Mawson. Note also that the global 1998 peak is absent; that there are probably changes in the types of instruments used; that there could be splicing to smooth the instrument transitions; and that as shown above, the locations of the weather station screens might not be optimum. There are a few reported effects of the height of the thermometer/thermistor above the surface in the range 0-2 meters, and the snow under the screens is subject to changes in levels. Also, on this continent of ferocious winds, the wind teperature variation that is measured could have been drived from heating/cooling effects that happened quite some distance away. Not easy to pin it to the lat/long of the base.
So, yes, there are probably complications that would stay the hand of a good scientist from blurting out an unequivocal statement.
The difference between these estimates from totally indepent techniques reflects the uncertainties in these difficult measurements; nevertheless…
AGW science at its best.
This website: http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/2006/11/cold-antarctica-is-still-very-cold.html
has all the data from Mawson, Antarctica, which clearly shows no significant increase or decrease of temperature in the past 50 years.
UHI in these remote areas is no Joke.
A Study titled “THE URBAN HEAT ISLAND IN WINTER AT BARROW, ALASKA” 2001-2002 shows that the UHI in remote areas can be significant.
The photos above only show habitats, however heat from vehicles, aircraft and visiting scientific and tourist ships must also be accounted for.
http://www.geography.uc.edu/~kenhinke/uhi/HinkelEA-IJOC-03.pdf
Conclusions of the BARROW study….
5. CONCLUSIONS
Analysis of winter temperatures yields the following preliminary conclusions:
1. Based on spatial averages for the period 1 December 2001 to 31 March 2002, the urban area is 2.2 °C warmer than the rural area.
2. In winter, the daily UHIM (Td, u−r) increases with decreasing temperature, reaching a peak value of around 6 °C in January–February. This likely reflects higher energy usage for residential and commercial space heating.
3. The daily UHIM decreases with increasing wind velocity. Under calm conditions (< 4 knots or 2 m s−1) the daily UHIM is 3.2 °C in winter.
4. Daily UHIMs in winter can be predicted using mean daily air temperature for light wind conditions of less than 7 knots (<3.5 m s−1) with a reasonable degree of confidence (r2 = 0.65, p = 0.04).
5. On a daily basis, the UHI is best developed under calm, cold conditions and can reach hourly magnitudes exceeding 9 °C; this reflects the increased (anthropogenic) heat input at this high-latitude site. On very windy days, the temperature field across the study area is uniform.
6. In winter, the UHIM is maximized in late evening to early morning, although both day and night tend to be warmer than the hinterlands. In summer, the urban area is frequently cooler. This may be an ‘inverse
heat island’, but more likely reflects a maritime influence on the coastal village.
7. Monthly HDD and monthly natural gas production/use are strongly related to the monthly UHIM (Tm, u–r).
8. Using spatial averages integrated over the winter season of 1 September 2001 to 31 May 2002, accumulated FDD are reduced 9% in the urban core compared with the hinterland.
Copyright 2003 Royal Meteorological Society Int. J. Climatol. 23: 1889–1905 (2003)
Frank K. (20:15:32)
Ah…its the rate of increase of sea level that is flattening. O.K.
I’ve seen both oceans. I’m not really comfortable with measuring sea level rise in increments as small as a millimeter. I would rather not contemplate tenths of a millimeter. I once took some geology courses. Rising mountains, subsiding areas covered by oceans, land going down or up withe the advance or retreat of glaciers…I just can’t believe there’s any land that has stayed in place. Anyway, for me its…how many years to get to a one mer rise?
I was careless in my reference to GLACIERS and ICE CAPS. They’re still.. ”
“retreating”.
AKD (21:53:27)
re: “uncertainties in these difficult (East Antarctle) measurements.”
The East Antarctic situation is a muddle. If you choose to blame the scientists, that is your choice. But remember, the AGW proponents don’t really care about about the results. Until the recent reconciliation of satellite temperature data with weather station data; they were content to give up East Antarctic. Its a regional situation, and it has unique weather effects.
Actually, its the skeptic side that keeps looking southward. If not for the Antarctic mass balance, then for the sea ice.
“I was careless in my reference to GLACIERS and ICE CAPS. They’re still.. ”
“retreating”.”
Not all glaciers are retreating – certainly some are. Even so, can you link this change to CO2? Could it be due to local land use issues, deforestation, and other obvious (man-made) causes? Could it also be perfectly natural in most cases – the waxing and waning of glaciers, icebergs, sea ice, and ice caps? I think so. Again, I don’t think anything we puny humans do will affect the earth’s climate to the degree expressed by the AGW alarmists.
I wish you well. And I hope you can channel your depression about AGW into activities that can have a *** real *** impact on our Earth, including land conservation, recycling, attending to the poor and hungry, and in general being a good steward of our environment. This does NOT include thinking CO2 is an evil poison or giving carbon taxes to greedy eco-tycoons like Al Gore…
John Mclean has been the voice of reason on these matters for some time and is to be congratulated on this piece and others, in particular his exposure of the fraud that is the so-called independent and peer review process of the IPCC. The narrow focus of climate research funding to which he refers is nowhere better exemplified than within the once unimpeachable CSIRO, which is now little more than an acolyte for the climate alarmist movement. Interestingly, the CSIRO, when it undertakes commercial consulting work issues a disclaimer to the effect that computer climate models are not forecasting tools and should not be read as such. But that doesn’t stop the organisation, or more recently individuals within it, from propagating their alarmist dogma which is based on such models to governments and the general public. Presumably they can’t be held personally liable for these claims when that dogma is finally exposed for what it is. Recently it also seemed that the Bureau of Meteorology was applying to upgrade its membership of the alarmist club when one of its researchers sought to deny 50 years of cooling temperature records in the Antarctic, and claimed instead that it was warming. Fortunately he was pulled into line by his boss, who told the truth.
Sorry my last post sent to the wrong blog
Mike Borgelt (15:45:06) : 2 05 2009
I’d be delighted of you could please give me references to the alleged error in the kinetics of ozone chemistry. I am a chemist. I have found some references to this allegation and I seek to check that I have the significant ones. Or all, for that matter, including corections and/or rebuttals. The whole ozone chemistry thingo has not had the right feel since the first publications a few decades ago.
Cheers sherro1 at optusnet,com,au
Commercial break. See my post at Geoff Sherrington (06:36:07) : 2 05 2009 above