Hmmmmm, or not ~cr
Kyle Clem, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Climate scientists long thought Antarctica’s interior may not be very sensitive to warming, but our research, published today, shows a dramatic change.
Over the past 30 years, the South Pole has been one of the fastest changing places on Earth, warming more than three times more rapidly than the rest of the world.
My colleagues and I argue these warming trends are unlikely the result of natural climate variability alone. The effects of human-made climate change appear to have worked in tandem with the significant influence natural variability in the tropics has on Antarctica’s climate. Together they make the South Pole warming one of the strongest warming trends on Earth.
The South Pole is not immune to warming
The South Pole lies within the coldest region on Earth: the Antarctic plateau. Average temperatures here range from -60℃ during winter to just -20℃ during summer.
Antarctica’s climate generally has a huge range in temperature over the course of a year, with strong regional contrasts. Most of West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula were warming during the late 20th century. But the South Pole — in the remote and high-altitude continental interior — cooled until the 1980s.
Scientists have been tracking temperature at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Earth’s southernmost weather observatory, since 1957. It is one of the longest-running complete temperature records on the Antarctic continent.
Our analysis of weather station data from the South Pole shows it has warmed by 1.8℃ between 1989 and 2018, changing more rapidly since the start of the 2000s. Over the same period, the warming in West Antarctica suddenly stopped and the Antarctic Peninsula began cooling.
One of the reasons for the South Pole warming was stronger low-pressure systems and stormier weather east of the Antarctic Peninsula in the Weddell Sea. With clockwise flow around the low-pressure systems, this has been transporting warm, moist air onto the Antarctic plateau.
South Pole warming linked to the tropics
Our study also shows the ocean in the western tropical Pacific started warming rapidly at the same time as the South Pole. We found nearly 20% of the year-to-year temperature variations at the South Pole were linked to ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific, and several of the warmest years at the South Pole in the past two decades happened when the western tropical Pacific ocean was also unusually warm.
To investigate this possible mechanism, we performed a climate model experiment and found this ocean warming produces an atmospheric wave pattern that extends across the South Pacific to Antarctica. This results in a stronger low-pressure system in the Weddell Sea.
We know from earlier studies that strong regional variations in temperature trends are partly due to Antarctica’s shape.
The East Antarctic Ice Sheet, bordered by the South Atlantic and Indian oceans, extends further north than the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, in the South Pacific. This causes two distinctly different weather patterns with different climate impacts.
More steady, westerly winds around East Antarctica keep the local climate relatively stable, while frequent intense storms in the high-latitude South Pacific transport warm, moist air to parts of West Antarctica.
Scientists have suggested these two different weather patterns, and the mechanisms driving their variability, are the likely reason for strong regional variability in Antarctica’s temperature trends.
Read more: How solar heat drives rapid melting of parts of Antarctica’s largest ice shelf
What this means for the South Pole
Our analysis reveals extreme variations in South Pole temperatures can be explained in part by natural tropical variability.
To estimate the influence of human-induced climate change, we analysed more than 200 climate model simulations with observed greenhouse gas concentrations over the period between 1989 and 2018. These climate models show recent increases in greenhouse gases have possibly contributed around 1℃ of the total 1.8℃ of warming at the South Pole.
We also used the models to compare the recent warming rate to all possible 30-year South Pole temperature trends that would occur naturally without human influence. The observed warming exceeds 99.9% of all possible trends without human influence – and this means the recent warming is extremely unlikely under natural conditions, albeit not impossible. It appears the effects from tropical variability have worked together with increasing greenhouse gases, and the end result is one of the strongest warming trends on the planet.
These climate model simulations reveal the remarkable nature of South Pole temperature variations. The observed South Pole temperature, with measurements dating back to 1957, shows 30-year temperature swings ranging from more than 1℃ of cooling during the 20th century to more than 1.8℃ of warming in the past 30 years.
This means multi-decadal temperature swings are three times stronger than the estimated warming from human-caused climate change of around 1℃.
The temperature variability at the South Pole is so extreme it currently masks human-caused effects. The Antarctic interior is one of the few places left on Earth where human-caused warming cannot be precisely determined, which means it is a challenge to say whether, or for how long, the warming will continue.
But our study reveals extreme and abrupt climate shifts are part of the climate of Antarctica’s interior. These will likely continue into the future, working to either hide human-induced warming or intensify it when natural warming processes and the human greenhouse effect work in tandem.
Kyle Clem, Research Fellow in Climate Science, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
All of Canada, Chicago, and much of the northern USA, is happy that the Laurentide Ice Sheet once warmed faster than any other place on Earth, because no one can barbecue under a mile of ice.
As George Carlin once said onstage, “We didn’t do it” [melt 3,000 trillion tonnes of ice].
I thought all the latest research shows that everywhere was warming twice as fast as the global average (was posted here some time ago) so this is just normal.
James Bull
“These climate models show recent increases in greenhouse gases have possibly contributed around 1℃ of the total 1.8℃ of warming at the South Pole.”
Did they include Vegan farts as greenhouse gas?
But no matter how much they are powering generators and farting
they are not going warm it up by much.
Nothing of any scientific value is coming from this frozen continent.
Frequently Asked Questions about Antarctica
1/ Why doesn’t it rain in Antarctica ?
The simple answer is that it’s too cold.
2/ Where is the South Pole ?
Unlike the North Pole the South Pole is inland.
3/ What do you pack in your survival kits?
Scientists in Antarctica generally live on a base or station where everything is provided for them
4/ How do people survive the cold in Antarctica ?
You wrap up warm in layers and several of them.
They forgot mention the burning of fossil fuel.
The temperature anomaly plot has no ferschlunginer error bars. Yet again. It’s meaningless.
And the uncertainty in each anomaly is the root-sum-square of the error in the measurement and the uncertainty in the normal, making the anomalies less certain than the measurements.
These people are scientifically clueless. Consensus climatologists continue to indicate incompetence as a class.
It’s a self-perpetuating incompetence, like an auto-regression.
I think it was Richard Lindzen that said the whole climate science field needs about 95% reduction in funding for at least 5 years, force whole programs to collapse and eliminate most researchers to find new jobs. Then it can restart with only properly trained researchers without being wed to bad ideas and hopelessly flawed models.
Climate “Science” has reached such a peak of computer-modelled perfection that error bars are unnecessary.
Today earthnullschool.net has central Antarctica at minus 56C
So, it is warming (by one degree) because stronger low-pressure systems have been transporting warm, moist air onto the Antarctic plateau. logically this means that there is a lot more precipitation because of the moist air, more snow is accumulating and being sequestered than normal (whatever normal is), which results in slowing sea level rise.
Maybe they need to change the headline.
Yes, a rise from -80C to -40C is rapid warming, but still deep freeze.
That’s why anomalies are most appreciated 😀
“we performed a climate model experiment”. Not scientists then. No need to read any further.
In the prior interglacial, the Eemian, the WAIS had collapsed and that caused significant sea level rise that must have been catastrophic for the Neanderthals. It appears that this historic event has left a deep yearning in climate science for a similar catastrophic sea level rise event by way of ice melting in Antarctica midway into the Holocene. There is a long history of this yearning. It continues unabated. It is an obsession of some kind.
Pls see
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/07/16/antarctica-slr/
Is it relevant that Australia’s Antarctic base of Davis had a mean temperature of -10.24C in 1989-1998 and -10.30C in 2009-2018 – i.e. 0.06C cooler?
Or a bit more recently that Davis had a mean temperature of -10.24C in 1989-1998 and -10.34C in 2010-2019 – i.e. 0.10C cooler?
Or that Australia’s Antarctic base of Mawson had a mean temperature of -11.1C in 1955-1964, -11.4C in 1990-1999 and -11.3C in 2010-2019 – i.e. 0.2C cooler?
Probably not.
A perfect wind farm location, how come there are none in the picture…..?
The inhabitants of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station is in dire need for more funding, before they can extent the diesel power needed to run an industrial wind turbine assembly.
Extra electricity is needed for heating gear oil and for deicing.
A defense system against flying penguins is needed, in order to avoid turbine blade chopped penguins, which could lead to invasion of polar bears grilling the chopped penguins.
Apart from the above slight sarcasm, it appears in the picture of the station, that there are solar panel arrays. If that is true, then the community is Green enough already.
Has anyone else noticed the timing of these ‘studies’ being released?
Always seems to come out around the Warm months of the year?
Funny that.
Actually there are two hemispheres Charles.
Charles was clearly talking about NH publications, where and when the majority of humans live in the warmest weather. ( Remember how the extremist picked a summer heatwave to address the world, and turned off the AC? Yes, always expect more childish climate alarmist studies as we get into the NH summer.
Sorry, sorry, yes you’re right – there is only one hemishere.
Loydo just can’t bring herself to admit when she’s wrong.
Actually there are 4. North, south, east and west. But I bet you knew that aye?
There are an infinite number, just pick your coordinates
Ok smart ass. The north and south are delimited by the equator. The east and west are delimited by the Greenwich meridian. Hence FOUR hemispheres!
hem·i·sphere – noun, a half of a sphere.
Of which there are an infinite number in any sphere.
You just happened to only pick 4 of them.
“Dennis Kuzara July 1, 2020 at 7:30 pm”
Oh dear! Then why do we distinguish north and shout hemispheres about the equator? Nit picking I suspect!
No, Loydo, there’s actually more than that. There’s technically there’s an infinite number as a hemisphere simply refers to any division of the globe into two bounded by a great circle.
But the most commonly referred to Hemispheres are the ones based on the 4 points of the compass: North, (the half of the globe to north of the equator), South (the half of the globe to South of the equator), East (the half that lies east of the prime meridian and west of the 180th meridian) and West (the half that lies west of the prime meridian and east of the 180th meridian).
But regardless of how you wish to divide the earth into hemispheres, the fact remains that the majority of the population for whom the scare stories are targeted reside in what’s known as the Northern Hemisphere, so it should come as no surprise that those propaganda pieces tend to coincide most often with that hemisphere’s warmer months (the same reason that “a summer heatwave to address the world, and turned off the AC” as David A described it).
So one point where a lot of energy hungry scientists gather is warming, and yet the whole continent is not!
http://www.climate4you.com/images/70-90S%20MonthlyAnomaly%20Since1957.gif
“My colleagues and I argue these warming trends are unlikely the result of natural climate variability alone.”
Why would you jump to that fanciful conclusion when the geology of Hallett Cove in South Australia can show an average SLR of 16.25mm a year for 8000 years beginning around 15000 years ago and then you look at the current tide gauges at Fort Denison NSW and Port Arthur Tasmania and there’s nothing like that currently in any living lifetime?
Run along and pop some Saharan dust in all those computer models along with the tree rings etc and stop bothering sensible folks with weather worrying as there’s only one temperature proxy to rule them all down the ages and that’s SLR-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/weather/topstories/saharan-dust-is-bad-for-health-but-it-s-also-crucial-to-earth-s-biology-and-climate/ar-BB16ahUm
That’s when Kangaroo Island was Kangaroo Hills and no St Vincent or Spenser Gulfs existed to be named as the South Australian coastline was way south on the edge of the Continental Shelf before the sea rose 130M to create what we see today-
https://austhrutime.com/karta_island_of_the_dead.htm
“There were no Indigenous people living on Kangaroo Island when Flinders charted the Island’s coast in 1802, although archaeological evidence attests to earlier occupation.”
http://boundforsouthaustralia.com.au/journey-content/kangaroo-island-before-1836.html#:~:text=There%20were%20no%20Indigenous%20people%20living%20on%20Kangaroo,1802%2C%20although%20archaeological%20evidence%20attests%20to%20earlier%20occupation.
There’s no excuse for ignorance with these weather worriers in this day and age. Explain it or desist with your catastrophic global warming drivel and lunar prescriptions.
They can argue all the want. But evidence would be better.
The graph in the ATL article is titled :
“Annual mean surface temperature anomalies
At Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, from 1957 to 2018”
While the full Nature-CC article [ Edit : Note it was “Received – 20 November 2019” … ] is paywalled, the “Data availability” section includes a link to the underlying MET-Office / READER “raw” data, which can be used to confirm they used a “Reference Period” of 1981-2010 to calculate their anomalies.
The graph finishes at 2018, anomaly = +2.34°C (to 2 d.p.).
The READER data is now available to May 2020.
The annual anomaly for 2019 is +1.03°C.
NB : For comparison purposes, the GISS / GHCN V4 “Amundsen Scott, Unadjusted (Station-ID = AYW00090001” dataset has equivalent anomalies since 2010 of :
2010 : 0.80
2011 : 0.41
2012 : 0.01
2013 : 2.06
2014 : 0.60
2015 : 0.27
2016 : 0.68
2017 : 1.02
2018 : 2.30
2019 : 1.02
Although not statistically significant, the average temperature forecast (rounded) for the next 15 days at the South Pole is 4 degrees C less than the July average of -55 degrees C. Likewise for the last 10 days of June, the average temperature was 3 degrees less than that month’s average of -53 degrees C.
Will the follow up figures, probably much less alarmist, ever be published for 2019 and 2020?
How did sub-glacier and submarine volcanic activity fit into their model? Even though western Antarctica sits on a very active volcanic rift, I could find no mention of this in the article.
This article is talking about the area around the south pole, not west Antarctica.
Does anyone have a copy of the paper?
This doesn’t look right.
I thought that WV caused the majority of the warming – it has massive effects at the poles for obvious reasons and insignificant effect in the tropics. Or is this too simplistic?
That’s exactly what Joe Bastardi thinks. He’s back to only weekly, non-member videos:
http://www.weatherbell.com/premium
I think we have some Mannian style end point filtering
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2020/07/01/they-really-want-it/
” we performed a climate model experiment ”
And it is a good thin. No actual data was harmed by that “experiment”.
In other word they ran numbers on their computers and committed acts of self abuse while watching the video.
They better quit doing that or they will go blind.
From the article: “These climate model simulations reveal the remarkable nature of South Pole temperature variations. The observed South Pole temperature, with measurements dating back to 1957, shows 30-year temperature swings ranging from more than 1℃ of cooling during the 20th century to more than 1.8℃ of warming in the past 30 years.”
Well, according to the US surface temperature chart, 1934 was 0.5C warmer than 1957, so we need to add that amount to the 1C of cooling these folks found from 1957, to come to a total of about a 1.5C temperature drop.
So the temperatures drop 1.5C for a few decades, and then they warm up 1.8C for a few decades. It looks like natural variation to me. Of course, I don’t have any of those fancy computer models to play with, either.
Yes, I know the US isn’t Antarctica, but the Hansen 1999 US chart resembles regional surface temperature charts from all over the world, including in the Southern Hemisphere, in that they all show it was just as warm in the Early Twentieth Century as it is today, and I expect that is also the case with Antarctica.
Hansen 1999:
“Claim: New research shows the South Pole is warming faster than the rest of the world”
Alternatively, the warming of the rest of the world has slowed down sharply….
Anybody that references Steig 2009, like these people do has serious cockroaches in their brain. I don’t believe all the data for Steig 2009 was ever released. Steig 2009 completely ignored changes in cloud fraction in their reconstruction, among other many problems. A lot of electrons were spent on Steig 2009, a paper that should have been retracted. Among other issues, replication is not possible when the authors conceal data.
So in a context of stronger catabatic winds sending high pressure cold air masses deeper northward, renewed advection of warm air along the mountain range reaches the geographical pole… Big deal.