Antarctica is warming

[mendeleev 68]

Antarctica is warming (contrary to some earlier reports highlighted by some climate skeptics).

Warming is greatest in winter, when the sun doesn't shine down there.

"Mean surface temperature trends in both West and East Antarctica

are positive for 1957–2006, and the mean continental warming is

comparable to that for the Southern Hemisphere as a whole²⁸. This

warming trend is difficult to explain without the radiative forcing

associated with increasing greenhouse-gas concentrations." The quotation is from the last paragraph of a letter in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

The authors argue that increased concentrations of greenhouse gases like CO₂ drive this warming.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/...nature07669.pdf

[Rocky_nBullwinkle 6]

Warming is greatest in winter, when the sun doesn't shine down there.

The authors argue that increased concentrations of greenhouse gases like CO₂ drive this warming.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/...nature07669.pdf

If the sun is not producing the heat, then something else is. Warmer currents, or perhaps something else that is coincidently cause the warming. Greenhouse gases retain radiated heat, so with less sun in the winter at the South Pole, there is less radiation from that source.

Anyways, it should be interesting to see what is under all that ice!

--Bullwinkle

Edited January 22, 2009 by Rocky_nBullwinkle

[mendeleev 68]

If the authors are right, it is simply that due to an increased burden of infrared adsorbing gases, like CO₂, result in less radiation of heat to space, thereby increasing temperature in the atmosphere near the surface.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

It's fcuking 35F down here in FL. No wonder the usually cold places run out of cold air. It's all here now.

[mendeleev 68]

It's fcuking 35F down here in FL. No wonder the usually cold places run out of cold air. It's all here now.

Its summer down there, and that's the time of year that it isn't warmer than usual.

[alienlovechild 75]

Anyways, it should be interesting to see what is under all that ice!

There's a shot of Antartica without the ice without a higher sea level.

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

Where's all the melted ice now?

Edited January 22, 2009 by alienlovechild

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

It's fcuking 35F down here in FL. No wonder the usually cold places run out of cold air. It's all here now.

Its summer down there, and that's the time of year that it isn't warmer than usual.

I see the attempt at humor was lost on you.

[Rocky_nBullwinkle 6]

If the authors are right, it is simply that due to an increased burden of infrared adsorbing gases, like CO₂, result in less radiation of heat to space, thereby increasing temperature in the atmosphere near the surface.

So, I think understand what you and the authors are saying: The difference in temperature for past and current winters is greater than the same change in the summers. That makes sense. The sun can only charge the system so much, but the amount of heat that used to be lost in the winter in not as great as it was fifty years ago, that accounts for the smaller deviation in winter.

The study I pointed to would suggest that dirty ice absorbs the heat from the sun faster, and that too would increase the rate of melting overall. Specifically, they were looking at historic volcanic eruptions and the resulting ash.

--Bullwinkle

Edited January 22, 2009 by Rocky_nBullwinkle

[NickD 203]

"The authors argue that increased concentrations of greenhouse gases like CO₂ drive this warming."

First off CO₂ is not a greenhouse gas.

Second, carbon dioxide is not the cause of global warming, but is a product of global warming.

While under Gore, CFC's were suppose to be the cause of the increasing ozone hole in the Antarcitica, NASA very quietly reported later that the cause of that hole during the sunless winter months was actually caused by wind currents. But R-12 is taxed to hell, and R-134a became the EPA standard, and HFC that is notorious for global warming. While the EPA instituted extremely strict rules for technicians with very stiff fines for recovery, zero guidelines were instituted to the manufacturers of AC systems to prevent leakage. When I look at an vehicle AC system, there is nothing left to recover, it already leaked out due to poor materials, assembly, leaky seals, the use of neoprene that rots out in three years, etc. And the most rediculous service port was approved, a quick coupler that depends upon a large diameter piece of neoprene that can never seat properly. It's a complete contradiction, todays AC system leak more than any pre-EPA vehicle.

To study wind current, the government, not my government, dumped in tons of CFC's into the ocean to study ocean currents, less than 2% of the total CFC production was used in automotive applications, but that is exactly what they are picking on. How did we manage to put these braindead idiots in charge?

Our DOT with safety requirements has decreased our traffic flow by 30% meaning it takes a lot longer using a lot more fuel to go anywhere, and way oversized vehicles have been produced, with the worse ones not even required to list EPA fuel economy ratings.

Sure I am against our poor practices in conserving fuel, we are making other nations rich that is being used against us, have an extremely high trade dificit causing huge inflation. Did you know that in the last twenty years, the average cost of a new vehicle has tripled!

Do you know why an engineer works for the EPA? They are too stupid to work in private industry where you have to pay your own way and make a profit. But yet they are giving the orders. Sick of this #######.

[NickD 203]

Oh, and these PH.ds' that depend on grants for a living, pretty much say what the grantor wants them to say, otherwise, they don't get grants. How do I know this? Been part of my daily life.

Have a new respect for whores, they only rent out their bodies, but see people sell out not only their bodies, but hearts, mind, and soul as well. Anything to make a buck.

[mendeleev 68]

"The authors argue that increased concentrations of greenhouse gases like CO₂ drive this warming."

First off CO₂ is not a greenhouse gas.

The term "greenhouse gas" is a scientific slang that accurately describes some of the spectroscopic properties of gaseous CO₂ in a climate system at about 250-320 Kelvins. At those temperatures, typical of earth everywhere, the surface emits infrared radiation. Some of this radiation is adsorbed by CO₂ or other greenhouse gases (such as water, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, CFCs, HFCs, SF₆), temporarily increasing their internal energy. These excited molecules fall back to their ground state, emitting infrared light. This light is emitted isotropically -- that is, in all directions. Some of the light is emitted to space. Some is emitted back to earth. This infrared light emitted back to earth warms it, rather like putting on an extra blanket.

This effect was first proposed by Arrhenius, a pathbreaking physical chemist, over 100 years ago. Its factual basis cannot be questioned by informed individuals.

[mendeleev 68]

While under Gore, CFC's were suppose to be the cause of the increasing ozone hole in the Antarcitica, NASA very quietly reported later that the cause of that hole during the sunless winter months was actually caused by wind currents.

Wrong again.

In 1995, Crutzen, who, by the way, does not have an earned Ph.D. in anything but who is unquestionably a great scientist, along with Sherwood and Molina won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for sorting out the origins of the Antarctic ozone whole, which is mainly caused by chlorine-based catalysis after antarctic sunrise after winters with particularly cold stratospheric temperatures that result in formation of certain type of polar stratospheric clouds based on nitric acid. These clouds, solid water-nitric acid mixtures, catalyze decomposition of certain inactive chlorine compounds, ultimately derived from CFCs, resulting in formation of catalytically active chlorine compounds that, once sunrise comes, catalyze ozone destruction.

In decades past, the winter northern polar stratosphere was too warm for these clouds to form. A curious (but now verified) prediction of global warming theories is that the northern polar stratosphere would actually cool in winter from historic levels, potentially allowing formation of these nitric acid-water clouds. These clouds are now occasionally observed in northern winters and their associated chlorine catalyzed ozone destruction capacity in the far north has been verified. Fortunately, the magnitude of the northern problem is much smaller than what happens in the far south.

[alienlovechild 75]

You guys are more knowledgable than I on this subject so please tell me where all the melted ice went. Is it in the air? How come sea levels haven't risen dramatically yet?

[mendeleev 68]

Oh, and these PH.ds' that depend on grants for a living, pretty much say what the grantor wants them to say, otherwise, they don't get grants. How do I know this? Been part of my daily life.

Have a new respect for whores, they only rent out their bodies, but see people sell out not only their bodies, but hearts, mind, and soul as well. Anything to make a buck.

There are other American Ph.D.'s who have spent their career in industry designing, manufacturing, selling, and *exporting* pollution control equipment to Europe, Japan, even places like China, Thailand, and India, where markets were created for those products by stricter environmental regulation than we have here in the USA for the same devices (primarily motorcycles, diesel vehicles, and power plants). Those American scientists have marvelled at how wing nuts here complain about how strict environmental and safety regulations destroy the ability of the USA to compete economically. American vehicles have the worst fuel economy in the world, but they are not the safest, nor are they the cleanest or the cheapest. It would appear that those markets that have bought these products have, on the whole, done quite fine competitively, in spite of stricter environmental and safety regulation.

But let's try to get back to the topic, NickD.

Edited January 22, 2009 by novotul

[Fandango 1,439]

We've been warming since the Ice Age...