Guest essay by Eric Worrall (see update below – Anthony)
h/t JoNova; Global warming appears to have brought near record cold to Scott Base in Antarctica, which a few days ago endured -81.7C / -115F, almost 4 degrees below the freezing point of Carbon Dioxide (-78C / -109F).
Scott Base crew enduring near-record breaking Antarctica winter – 10C colder than usual
Spare a thought for the hardy crew who are wintering down in Antarctica, experiencing near-record breaking cold temperatures.
They’ve come very near to the coldest ever recorded temperature of -89.6C.
While it may have been -16C when Newshub spoke with the Scott Base crew – that’s almost balmy conditions compared to the -81.7C recorded on the icy continent this week.
Antarctica New Zealand science tech Jamie McGaw says he “can’t even imagine that extreme cold”.
…
NIWA Meteorologist Ben Noll says the polar vortex has “kept all of these cold temperatures locked in over the Antarctic continent, and they haven’t been able to really push north – whether it’s to Australia, New Zealand or South America – they’ve been kind of stuck here.”
…
Read more (includes video): https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/scott-base-crew-enduring-near-record-breaking-antarctica-winter-10c-colder-than-usual/ar-AALaP9s
Its worth noting temperature is only part of the equation The partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere is very low, the -78C freezing point really only applies when you have pure CO2 at 1 atmosphere (h/t Dave Middleton, Anthony Watts). At lower pressures or where CO2 is only a trace component (normal atmospheric conditions) sublimation (evaporation of the CO2 ice) appears to dominate, making it highly unlikely there would be any accumulation of CO2 ice.
Nevertheless it would have been fascinating to monitor atmospheric CO2 content as the temperature dropped.
I understand if no such experiments were conducted. Perhaps scientists have already examined this possibility in situ as well as in laboratory conditions, or perhaps during the depths of the recent chill the researchers were more focussed on other priorities, like preventing body appendages from freezing solid and dropping off.
UPDATE by Anthony: I edited the title, because it gives an incorrect impression. The original title read:
Global Warming? Scott Base Antarctica Endures -115F, Cold Enough To Freeze CO2
The revised title:
Global Warming? Scott Base Antarctica Endures -115F
While the -115F air temperature is below the freezing point of CO2 at -109F, CO2 WILL NOT FREEZE OUT OF THE AIR. The partial pressure of CO2 in our atmosphere is too low. We did an experiment back in 2009 that proved this.
Tony Heller, aka “Steve Goddard” still won’t admit to making a mistake on that issue, which is why he no longer posts here.
Having CO2 fall as snow is one way to reduce it in the air. But if it doesn’t stick, you can’t shovel it up for collection.
Please stop buying into the bullshit by coming up with ways to reduce CO2 in the air. Removing CO2 from the air, in order to “Save the Planet” is without merit. Yes, I know you’re just being sarcastic. I’m being serious.
“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping
it will eat him last.” — Sir Winston Churchill 1954
His comment was tongue in cheek, lighten up.
Thanks for the reply.
Yes, I’m serious, every time someone suggests a way to reduce “Carbon” by whatever means, they are appeasing the left-wing monster. But yes, tongue in cheek it was, making good fun of the monster.
I suppose my post was an over reaction, but I do want to make the point to stop buying into the non-sense. Suggesting ways to reduce “Carbon” is more akin to appeasement than it is putting the brakes on what has become an over overwhelming disaster of poor policy produced by dishonest politicians chasing after one party rule and absolute power.
To use a well known phrase, this ain’t bean bag.
No, we are jabbing a dirty finger into the lefts’ collective(collectivist would apply, too) eye. Big fans here of all the gases and their contributions to this glorious climate and environment we all so enjoy, even when the weather is crappy.
Mockery has always been an effective political tactic. We are in a political war, too – not a scientific one.
Yes, there will always be the “activist” whose intelligence is surpassed by the room temperature, and will advocate for subsidizing giant freezer plants to save the planet from global warming. But they are about as common as those who spend their nights worrying about Guam tipping over.
So the answer to Man’s CO2 causing Global Warming is Global Freezing!
(Let’s hope they don’t try to “geoengineer” that!)
It’s one of the unintended consequences of GovMint action, once they start “seeding” the atmosphere, stock up on winter wear.
I have an ultra-cold freezer that does -86C and I occasionally use it to preserve dry ice for experiments from one day to the next. Dry ice will still sublime away at those temperatures unless sealed to prevent it. I should note that atmospheric pressure in the lab here varies around about 630 Torr.
If sealed, one must be concerned that very high pressures will develop if the temperature rises significantly, so one should not use a vessel for this unless it’s rated to over 74 Atm.
I find a sealable plastic bag to work pretty well.
At an atmospheric concentration of only about 0.04%, it’s very difficult to overcome entropy to freeze CO2 out from air regardless of temperature. Water is usually at much higher concentrations and it’s pretty easy to freeze out as frost.
“Nevertheless it would have been fascinating to monitor atmospheric CO2 content as the temperature dropped.”
No, no, no, no. I’m permanently scarred from the the WUWT blow up years ago. (Tony Heller still may noi admit he was wrong….)
I don’t bother to monitor atmospheric H2O vapor when New Hampshire air temperatures fall below freezing unless the dew point (actually, its close relative the frost point) may be reached on a clear night. When it does, I have to scrape frost off my car’s windshield in the morning.
I remembered that when I read the headline. It is still the stupidest thing ever written here at WUWT – on the science. at least.
How long ago was it? It must be close to a decade.
It was about 12 years ago.
That’s a long time.
And in all that time nothing has happened of any real note on climate change policy.
WUWT won with Climategate and the rest is gravy.
The AGW true believers are still in deep denial over Climategate. It’s quite pathetic, really … especially when they claim that a series of a dozen or more emails are “not in context”. I’ve never read such complex circumlocution when they attempt to reword what is perfectly straight forward text that fails to fit their narrative. They’re even more sensitive about Climategate than they are about the Man-made Global Cooling scare of the ’70s.
That is the hall mark of all liberals. They can’t overcome their inherent bias long enough to see facts counter to their world view.
The best excuse I’ve heard about Climategate is “The emails have been debunked”
Apparently the “investigation” that showed they were “hacked” somehow makes the content illegitimate?
“Tony Heller, aka “Steve Goddard” still won’t admit to making a mistake on that issue, which is why he no longer posts here.”
We will not make progress if we keep holding grudges and rubbing it in. Don’t say things like this, it just makes us look petty. Focus on the topic.
Perhaps Tony has changed his mind.
I agree. I like Tony’s website and I check it out every so often. He moved to Wyoming and he posts some nice photos and videos to supplement his science opinions…..
No CO2 won’t snow on antartica due to oartial pressure. Proof with freezer experiment on WUWT
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/13/results-lab-experiment-regarding-co2-snow-in-antarctica-at-113f-80-5c-not-possible/
That is specifically addressed in Eric’s post.
Please, please read this before you even begin to think there is frozen CO2 on Earth (or in the clouds) that forms naturally.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/13/results-lab-experiment-regarding-co2-snow-in-antarctica-at-113f-80-5c-not-possible/
This is specifically mentioned in Eric’s post.
So why did Eric also state “Nevertheless it would have been fascinating to monitor atmospheric CO2 content as the temperature dropped.”
Eric did not say that CO2 frost or snow is impossible. I wanted to make that point very, very clearly.
An idea I never would have….. even if Eric didn’t mention it.
As snow it should be not possible to monitor it the usual way.
But we know, in Antarctica CO2 cools
That’s right. Here’s what was posted:
From the article: At lower pressures or where CO2 is only a trace component (normal atmospheric conditions) sublimation (evaporation of the CO2 ice) appears to dominate, making it highly unlikely there would be any accumulation of CO2 ice.”
So, is it “highly unlikely” or “impossible”? There is a difference, you know.
I’m a software engineer – we very rarely talk in absolutes, having seen too many “impossible” things happen with hardware and software under development, or even after release.
I said impossible, I think with good reason. Why do you think it might be “highly unlikely” instead? Yes, I do understand the difference.
It’s not me saying it is “highly unlikely”. I assumed it was impossible based on discussions I have read about the “CO2 freezing out in Antarctica” argument that went on at WUWT some years ago.
At the time of this argument over frozen CO2, I had not yet discovered WUWT, and so I did not take part in the argument, and I don’t know who did, other than Tony Heller and Anthony, and I did not read all the arguments pro or con.
After I discovered WUWT, over the years conversations would come up referencing the frozen CO2 argument, and I believe there was a “consensus” among the commenters that it was impossible for CO2 to freeze out of the atmosphere, even in Antarctica.
So, I assumed that was the case. But then this article says at one point that it is “highly unlikely” which is different from impossible, and so I raised the question.
“Highly unlikely” would not rule out all possiblities. “Impossible” would rule all possibilities out.
Perhaps this is a matter of imprecise language, substituting “highly unlikely” for “impossible”.
And I wasn’t necessarily addressing the reply to you in particular, you just gave me the opportunity, with your comment, to ask this question.
When someone blabs to me that it’s hot enough on Venus to melt lead because of run away global warming due to an atmosphere that’s 95% CO2, I have always liked to tell them that Mars has an atmosphere that’s 95% CO2 and it’s so cold there it snows dry ice.
I was planning to say thank you for setting me straight, before someone points out I don’t know what I’m talking about.
But I like to look things up so I googled “Snows dry ice on mars” and this came up:
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter data have given scientists
the clearest evidence yet of carbon-dioxide snowfalls on Mars.
NASA Jet Propulsion Lab
Hmmm, I guess the 95% vs 0.04% is the difference. Still, thanks for the edjamacation.
And also published here:
Hayne, P.O., Paige, D.A., Schofield, J.T., Kass, D.M., Kleinböhl, A., Heavens, N.G. and McCleese, D.J., 2012. Carbon dioxide snow clouds on Mars: South polar winter observations by the Mars Climate Sounder. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets,117(E8).
Thanks (-:
Just FYI… for most papers that are behind paywalls:
https://sci-hub.se
Aarghh! Not this “The CO2 will freeze in Antarctica” again! I’ve been here for ages, and i remember the last time it was talked. Just don’t, puhleeze!
Try actually reading Eric’s post.
Sorry David, i did read it, and it’s fine. it’s just my PTSD;)
No worries. I very clearly remember the roasting Tony Heller received. However -115 F is still pretty freaking cold!
Yes! I remember when it dropped to -47 F here, and it was terrible enough.
We must all sacrifice to make sure it doesn’t rise up to -114F.
Timo, I wonder how many others suffer from (pretty damn close to!) PTSD over that episode.
Well, at least i’m not alone! it was… not nice back then.
A note to all of the commentators simply replying to the thread title… If you actually read Eric’s post, you would have seen this:
But it was madness.
Why try and trigger the flashbacks?
I don’t think Eric remembered Tony Heller’s roasting… And, technically, -115 F is cold enough to freeze CO2.. if the concentration was 1,000,000 ppm… 😉
With pure CO2 and the right nozzle, one can make dry ice snow even around room temperature because CO2 acts as a refrigerant, cooling upon expansion.
Any (ideal) gas cools upon expansion. PV = nRT and all that. Once it expands, it’s no longer at room temperature. That’s also not a known natural process in Antarctica.
CO2 is a good refrigerant because of its phase change properties between liquid and gaseous states. The bulk of a refrigerant’s cooling comes from evaporation, not gas expansion. Of course, in that regime we’re getting away from ideal gases.
In your CO2 example, dry ice can be relatively warm compared to ammonia, Freons, and other useful refrigerants.
CO2 fire extinguishers were the method of choice for cooling beer quickly whilst impressing the babes at frat parties in the ’70s, if my memory serves.
Well, slightly less concentrated, the temperature being lower than the freezing point.
“Ben Noll says the polar vortex has “kept all of these cold temperatures locked in over the Antarctic continent, and they haven’t been able to really push north”
Ben is wrong. Didn’t Melbourne area experience record cold only a week or so ago? Contemplating -115°F in Antarctica PLUS having meridianal outflow with its implications would be too much for the disgraced NIWA who got caught so egregiously adjusting temperatures to create global warming, that a challenge in court was successful and NIWA agreed that the series was unfit for use in evaluating climate. Here are the raw and ‘cooked’ temperatures.
A little forensic work might show that Australia’s BoM, NOAH or GISS gave NIWA their recipe for cooking the raw data? Now that would indict two or more agencies. Apparently other thermometers in the Pacific outside of ANZ all show no warming during the same period. Oz is a large landmass, NZ … er a few islands in a cold sea and raw T show no warming! I hope a detailed proctology will be done when this muppet show collapses. The felons aren’t very smart. Really smart people would have solved a number of issues in climate just doing good scientific work. These guys keep expanding the ECS and moving goal posts. Which is prima facie evidence of a non-scientific Agenda. None of the consensus in half a century has surpassed Charney’s level of knowledge, let alone steam engineer Guy Callendar who in 1938 estimated an ECS for CO2 of 1.67 around which the few real climate scientists have clustered their more recent estimates using diverse methods.
“Didn’t Melbourne area experience record cold only a week or so ago?”
Yep. Some still without power after severe storms and flooding. East Gippsland was hardest hit. The cold blast got all the way up into central NSW with snow in Orange (not an especially rare occurrence, but not common either).
Yes, it looks like they artificially cooled the Early Twentieth Century.
Without these bastardized temperature charts, the Alarmists would have nothing to point to as evidence of warming. They have to cheat in order to sell their climate change narrative and distorting the temperature profile is their method.
+6°C, so sayeth Nick S the enlightened one.
Melbourne did, and also very heavy snow.
Where is the climate justice in this?? Oh, the humanity!!
Silence used to be golden.
Love that.
….. allegedly
And they vote.
On the other hand, Siberia is once again seeing record temperatures and there is a real heatwave in western USA… both down to climate change
Griff, how long is your record?
Meanwhile, at the very same time, the temperature is 74F in Virginia Beach, 11F below normal for this day. I suppose this is down to climate change as well?
Did you check your CO2 concentration there? Maybe it’s lower than in Siberia.
We came close to hitting a record low for this time of year two days ago.
“both down to climate change”…..translation, please?
Griffter lives in a confused world…”climate change” is an effect or result – not a cause. No man knows the entire explanation of why the climate changes….exactly what causes the change….it’s sort of like Joey and his socialist demrats blaming guns for violence…guns or knives or clubs don’t commit violence – people commit violence.
griff is down to his last neurons
The fewer, the easier to be brainwashed.
Just wondering re: the partial pressure of Griff’s neurons. Can he get “brain freeze” at atmospheric pressures or not?
It’s kinda telling that Nick is too.
Everyone on here knows that griff was the official village idiot
Why Nick wants to be the new climate village idiot is anyone’s guess.
Did you read that over at the scientastic socialist?
Snowball earth, hothouse earth or Spa earth. Even in the Eemian there were hippos in the Thames. The world is still here, life is flourishing especially green life. No tipping point was crossed, so can you please explain why if its a little warmer than expected in Siberia and a heatwave in Western US you are papping your pants after all it is summer in the northern hemisphere. By the way this morning parts of Scotland had a frost silly of me mentioning that it’s just weather.
Scottish heatwave…the frost is melting
Holidaying in Cornwall at the moment, had the heating on last night. Some catastrophic global warming would be nice if only just for the next ten days. Fingers crossed.
Phew, just in time for the Glasgow lie fest.
Our heating has not gone off this year (Anglesey, N Wales)
I see hippos all over but especially in Walmart stores.
I’ve seen a few on the beaches, fortunately they were fully dressed. Perhaps I should be grateful its not very hot!
And don’t forget that in the Holocene climatic optimum around 6kya average summer temps in mid latitudes of the northern hemisphere were 2C to 3C degrees warmer than now and the treeline in Britain was 200 to 300m higher than today.
Weather, not climate.
Although I will listen to your hypothesis as to extra heat in the atmosphere causes a kinkier jet stream.
The mechanism beats me so I cannot critique it.
Yes, the jet stream variability and its cause have not been determined, as far as I can see. There are lots of theories. I haven’t seen one I could settle on right now.
The Hadley/Ferrel Cell controls much of the large-scale atmospheric convection cell in which air rises at the equator and sinks at medium latitudes, typically about 30° north or south and the Ferrel cell north of that. If these shift around a little, north-south etc, it takes the jet stream with it as it is transporting heat northward and south to the poles.
It appears this is one of the main causes of droughts and atmospheric rivers of moisture how all this shifts around for how the heat and moisture is transported, setting up low and high pressure zones. The when and how the heat from the tropics is shed towards the poles.
Hadley cells, Ferrel (mid latitude) and Polar cells are both sides of the equator. We see local weather. I am sure there is much more to it than this as well, but perhaps explains (simply) where and how the jet stream operates.
Temps are normal here in California mid 80s to 100, nights have been cool, I need to cover the pool to keep it over 78f, we like it hot with lots of co2, good for the tomatoes.
I’m in the Western U.S. and tomorrow it’s going to cool below normal and Friday it will cool even more. Just happen to be on the CO2 deficient side of the Rockies.
Oh wait, CO2 is the same concentration on both sides.
You need to work on that theory, Scissor. 🙂
Griff seems to think he knows how CO2 functions with regard to Earth’s weather. Maybe he will chime in with some valuable information for us.
The Southwest U.S. is starting to cool off from its heatwave, and I would like Griff to explain how CO2 can heat up the area and then leave the scene of the crime and let things cool off, after just a few days. I thought CO2 had staying power. What’s going on with the CO2?
Ok. Let’s consider that in the morning CO2 is at its highest concentration, but as the sun rises, plant photosynthesis takes off causing CO2 levels to drop.
Seems like CO2 is not correlated with temperature on this timescale.
Of course, it cooled globally from the 1940’s through the 1970’s and CO2 fell during that time. Wait that’s not right, it rose didn’t it? I guess CO2 doesn’t correlate on that longer time scale either.
Temperature fell from the Medieval Warm Period while CO2 remained the same. Whoops.
Ok, ice core data shows that CO2 rise lags temperature rise by a few hundred years. Now that doesn’t make sense if CO2 causes temperature to rise and not the other way round. Whoopsie.
What’s going on? I’m sure AOC could explain it.
High today (Davis-Monthan AFB) – 97F. High this day last year 106F. This day 2019 98F.
2018: 100F
2017: 111F
2016: 101F
Lowest high in the last five years…
So good to have this post up against the previous one (re: record temps in PacNW U.S.) so we can all see that record temperatures have nothing to do with climate, but everything to do with hyperventilation.
Do you even know what “climate change” means? Have you ANY idea what you’re talking about?
Well, I live in western USA and it’s cooler here than I would like, but some nice blue sky as I look outta my window. No climate crisis here, climate mental midgets, from your reporter on the ground.
If it gets to 110 this weekend, it will be 6 degrees short of about 20 years ago.
…. and for those who remember:
Look over there, a dry ice factory
Good place to get some thinking done
Find a city
Find myself a city to live in
“there is a real heatwave in western USA”
It’s getting cooler there, Griff. What? Did you think the heatwave was going to last forever?
Yes, it’s cooler there now and rain is moving into the area. CO2 has nothing to do with any of it, or at least, not so you could tell.
You claiming to see CO2’s effects on the weather is like Greta claiming she can see CO2. Both are ridiculous claims.
Yep, earlier monsoon pattern than in the mythical average year. (We locals are hoping it “sticks” better than some years – there were good reasons for the First Americans around here to frequently associate the weather with Coyote, the trickster Spirit.)
And the 17 year cicadas in central Ohio usually emerge in late April to mid May.
They emerge when the ground reaches about 64* 8 inches down.
I didn’t hear them till mid June.
“Global Warming”?
Take a deep breath and think back to 1989 or even Gore’s Incontinence thing. What was the scare? “CAGW” aka Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. But then “The Pause” began.
Predictions, projections began to fall apart so “Climate Change” started to creep into the MSM replacing “Global Warming” as the need for Government to control the peons.
To this day, with all the cash dumped into the re-sacking … er … research, have they ever measured and defined (NOT THEORIZED OR MODELED) just what is the the temperature increase due to Man’s CO2?
Answer: NO!
I have seen very few so far, despite last week being quite warm. I’m wondering if the peak is still to come, what with this week being cool.
I live in Western USA, have seen many heat waves there since 1964, you are wrong as it is NORMAL to have them every summer.
The worst Heatwaves in Eastern Washington state, was in the 1970’s when it reached 113 in July 1971, yup right during Global COOLING time.
June 1970, it was over 100 F for 21 consecutive days, 17 days in a row in July 1971.
Yup you are wrong,,,, as usual.
Griff, get with the vibe, it’s climate breakdown now according to the Guardian.
I edited the title and placed an update caveat in the body.
CO2 cannot freeze out of the air here on Earth, ever. Mars is a different story.
Thank you!
When I was kid our milkman gave me a small chunk of dry ice. He liked me (“our milkman” I think I just dated myself.) He put it in the water in a sink near our door. I was fascinated watching it bubble and the white vapor rolling over the sink and falling to the floor.
That little memory has nothing to do with the topic but I wanted to throw it in.
PS He also gave me his “The Bluejacket’s Manual 1940”. That was in the 1960’s. I still have it. My Dad and Uncles were WW2 Army vets. A bit of service rivalry perhaps?
(And, no, I don’t look like our milkman! 😎
There is an interesting aside to this post, found in footnote 25 to essay When Data Isnt in ebook Blowing Smoke. Scott is BEST station 166900. BEST’s regional expectations automatic QC took a Scott pre-adjustment no trend and concluded post adjustment that Scott was warming. This was done by eliminating 26 extreme cold months that did not meet the ‘regional expectation’ derived by comparing Scott to McMurdo, which is 1300 km away and 2700 meters lower on the Antarctic coast.
Some version of this regional expectations problem underlies all fiddled homogenization adjustments that confound UHI with AGW from CO2. Other pristine to polluted illustrations in the essay included Rutherglen Ag research station in Australia, Reykjavik Iceland, and Sulina Romania.
This has to be some kind of tipping point.
So are we saying now that a record low (daily,
presumably) temperature at a single location on the face if the earth is evidence that global warming isn’t happening?
Wow, how deranged would you need to be to reach that conclusion? It’s pretty much a mantra here that it’s just weather.
It’s ok, not your fault. We know it’s too hard for you to understand.
If that’s the case, why even mention it?
Probably a better question for the media that hypes the heatwaves.
Is that a sincere question or are you merely trolling?
Not quite trolling. The article previous to this one at WUWT was about an impending heat wave and how that doesn’t mean anything in terms of long term temperature trends. I agree with that. It’s the same here. If the odd local record temperature record here or there, hot or cold, gets broken, and if we agree that this doesn’t really mean anything compared to long term global trends, then why bring these things up at all?
More like it’s a jab against the sentiment that a high temperature in some place, like the UK or Siberia proves the contrary position – that it is warming.
In fact, climate, like weather, like sea level, always changes and everything is still within the range of natural variation.
That simple, factual sentence cannot be repeated often enough.
Have you found anyone here actually saying anything like that? As a matter of fact, have you found anyone here denying that the planet has warmed since the LIA?
That last line regarding Tony made me want to delete this tab (aka You). Because I follow you both (multiple times a day) and don’t recall him ever bad mouthing you. Follow Ronald Reagan’s 13th Commandment: Thall shalt not criticize thy fellow…
Even Ronald Reagan cannot change the Laws of Thermodynamics.
Reality trumps Politics.
Hasn’t posted doesn’t mean banned from posting.
I wasn’t privy to all the fallout over the 2009 posts (yes, plural) about Antarctica. However, I have posting rights here, though I haven’t had time to exercise them lately.
I won’t dig into the history, it’s not that interesting and all the details weren’t public, but essentially he (as Steven Goddard) was encouraged to leave. Before then he was a prolific poster here.
I assume he can comment here still. That’s an entirely different aspect of blogs.
I can comment on Tony Heller’s blog. It seems best if I don’t.
This proves nothing. You people need to understand that “climate change” means that the sky may be falling, or rising!
(read with sincere but sarcastic tone)
In all fairness, it is winter there…
Guys, the reason I suggested monitoring CO2 is there are factors other than whether a pure CO2 frost can form. For example CO2 solubility in liquid water increases as temperature drops. Snow tends to have a high surface area. Does CO2 stick to ice? Would CO2 at less than -78C be more likely to stick to high surface area snowflakes, even at very low partial pressure of CO2?
Probably dissolve rather than ‘stick to’.
Sure – but what is the diffusion rate into snow? Are there any low temperature allotropes which promote or impede CO2 absorption? Or is snow already saturated, unable to absorb more CO2 if the temperature drops? Worth gathering a few air samples, to see if anything interesting is happening?
Eric,
As to the research, I think I agree: it would seem to me like part of a good inquiry as to why Antartica and Greenland ice cores disagree, and a good test of what “well mixed gas” really means. Of course, one outcome from that might be that some models built on ice core data could be wrong…
But you’ve stumbled into an old controversy, which IMO really itself didn’t amount to much, and your good suggestion may be lost in the resulting noise.
CO2 is forced out of solution as water freezes, not that there’s much liquid water on Antarctica in the winter. Same with other gases, but there’s carbonic acid chemistry going on. I assume the crystalline structure of ice leaves no place for the CO2 to hang out.
All this stuff would be more amenable to lab research than at Scott (or better, Vostok).
Much to my surprise, I can find nothing with Google about CO2 solubility in water ice.
I feel a little bit skeptical. According to Wikipedia, “The highest recorded temperature was 6.8 °C (44.2 °F), the coolest −57 °C (−71 °F) and the mean temperature −19.6 °C (−3.3 °F)”. If Scott Base truly experienced a temperature of -115 degrees, that is a significant departure from the previously documented lowest temp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Base
Yes, i agree. Wasn’t it about 10 years ago they found a canyon/valley in Antarctica where it was -94 and that was a record?
Crap. I misremembered..that was Siberia. The Antarctica was -134 and i thought it interesting because the record high was the same only +134.
If you look at Antarctica on a monthly basis you see that there has been no warming even though CO2 has increased by 25%?
https://imgur.com/a/CDasqHH
It tried to get water vapor to help it out, but water vapor had a good excuse to politely decline.
“Adsorption measurements of N2 and CO2 were done on amorphous, cubic, and hexagonal ice. The measurements on hexagonal ice were done in the temperature range between 195 and 273°K for CO2 and also on amorphous and cubic ice at 77°K for N2. An anomalous adsorption is found for CO2 in the high temperature range. This is explained by the existence of a quasi-liquid layer on the ice surface at high temperatures.”
A 1982 paper that is paywalled. Solidifying CO2 is not an issue. Adsorption to ice surfaces is. A lot more when just below freezing and large surface area. There could be numerous ways in which firn temperature affects concentration of CO2 trapped in ice. Very cold and less surface water (thin layers on ice crystal surfaces) so less trapped. More importantly, pressure on firn leading to more surface ice that absorbs CO2 from pockets of air below, not yet sealed completely. Not sure it’s enough to explain a delay of 100s of years as the temperature increases but more likely that is the reason than showing a correlation between global temp and global CO2 levels.
That’s very interesting, suggests CO2 absorption drops at lower temperatures.
My best friend from High school who is now a doctor and working in Alaska has said their winters have been harsh for years. Actual scientists claim a solar cooling event is the cause. I believe them. The sun is the #1 factor in Earth’s temperature.
I once endured -100C (-148F). I went in to a special refrigerator made to preserve antarctic ice cores with a colleague. No one was allowed to enter the refrigerator alone, and I got tasked by virtue of hanging around at the wrong place at the wrong moment. I cannot describe the cold, as I couldn’t feel it. At some point senses fail.
I recall nothing of the main topic of this thread which has something to do with the “stupidest thing ever written at WUWT”. I was an irregular visitor to WUWT back then.
That’s freaky cold, only 79C warmer than Titan. Did you have to wear a mask or anything?
I recall a massive parka, but I can’t recall a mask. And, I didn’t change from my Luccese cowboy boots (made in El Paso) — those boots set a record for cold cowboy boots notwithstanding jokes about Laramie winter.
We weren’t in there long.
I would be more worried about the LP supply freezing.
As in propane for heating? I looked into that in a USENET discussion decades ago and came across stories of folks in Alaska using hair dryers to warm up their propane tanks enough to get their furnace operating. Propane (at 1 atm) has a boiling point of -43.6°F. Somehow I got an image in my head about walking around with a couple buckets of boiling propane and how risky that would be.
But how could does it have to be to create co2 snow from the earth’s atmosphere with 400 ppm CO2 at sea level? i.e.does anybody have a CO2 phase diagram that includes the range of 0.001 atm to 0.0001 atm?
From https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/09/co2-condensation-in-antarctica-at-113f/ (another post in that brouhaha):
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new link
http://www.chemicalogic.com/Documents/co2_phase_diagram.pdf
Hey Hans, you were there!
We were all getting rather punchy by the end of the comments in that post….
BTW, the formatting is better at the original host, see https://wattsupwiththat.wpcomstaging.com/2009/06/09/co2-condensation-in-antarctica-at-113f/
found this approximation formula:
p=0.01316*10^(-(1354.210/T)+8.69903+0.001588*T-(4.5107*10^-6)*T^2)
plotted here from -170 to -56 deg C and 1ppm to 10 bar
Those icy catabatic winds from Antarctica are contributing to strong downwelling and formation of cold deep saline water which means cooling in the pipeline for the global climate.
https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2020/09/12/widespread-signals-of-southern-hemisphere-ocean-cooling-as-well-as-the-amoc/
https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2021/05/13/southern-hemisphere-sea-ice-now-extends-80-km-farther-north-than-prior-estimates/
It’s now well established that in parts of Antarctica over some seasons, the CO2 “greenhouse” effect turns negative and cools rather than worn:
Negative greenhouse effect over the high and cold Antarctic plateau – Odyssey (wordpress.com)
On interesting implication of this is that historic epochs of near-global glaciation, the so-called “snowball earth” episodes, cannot have been ended by CO2 increasing. Since increasing CO2 would cool, not warm, a snowball earth.
I won’t look into it, but I believe “high and cold” is an important aspect. Snowball Earth was mostly at sea level.
Ric
One of the reasons for a negative greenhouse effect over Antarctica is that the pure snow is whiter than cloud. Thus cloud cover decreases albedo, rather than increasing it as it does elsewhere. This effect is independent of altitude.
The partial pressure of CO2 might not be high enough to freeze into “dry ice”, but -115 F is much too cold to melt any H2O ice, as some warm-mongers are worried about! Anyone who ventured outside would create their own snowstorm when exhaling!
Assuming they don’t heat with solar panels or windmills, do they use coal, oil or NG? PS I’d want all three, plus 10 cord of cut, split and stacked Maine hardwood. ; )
It is cold enough to freeze CO2. It’s a headline. There is nothing wrong with that statement. It does not [did not] say ‘freeze co2 out of the air’. I think you’re being petty there. The whole point is that it is an unimaginably coldness to the vast majority of earthers.