A Question For CO2 Global Warming Theory Supporters?

Question

Why Is Antarctica Colder Since 1957?

"As one example, at the South Pole, where the U.S. decades ago established a station, temperatures have actually fallen since 1957. Neither is Antarctica's advance or retreat a new question raised by the spectre of global warming: This is the oldest scientific question of all about the Antarctic ice sheet."

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=b228f4b0-a869-4f85-ba08-902b95c45dcf&k=0

Answer 1

Antarctica is cooling because of the loss of stratospheric ozone due to anthropogenic CFC's. When ultraviolet light hits ozone in the stratosphere, it breaks up the ozone molecule and releases heat in the process. In Antarctica, because of the ozone hole, there is less ozone and therefore less ozone breakup -- and less heat released.

This ozone effect is well represented in global climate models.

Answer 2

The main answer is that global warming doesn't mean it will get warmer on every spot on Earth. But the global trend is clear. Peer reviewed data, with references:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record_png

Other factors are the degradation of the ozone layer over Antarctica, and the fact that there isn't a large network of weather stations across Antarctica, so the temperature data there is the lousiest in the world.

More stuff about global temperatures here, with a few hundred references:

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Pub_Ch03.pdf

You can search the document for Antarctica, to get more details. It appears that the areas furthest South are cooling, the more northerly Antarctic Penninsula is warming.

The best study and data appears to be here:

Turner, J., et al., 2005: Antarctic climate change during the last 50 years. Int. J. Climatol., 25, 279–294

Answer 3

Climate scientists know that parts of Antarctica have cooled and have never tried to hide the fact, the data is openly published in many reports. Parts of the Pacific have also cooled, so too have parts of central South America.

Here's a map of the world showing which parts have cooled in recent years - http://profend.com/global-warming/temporary/page1.html and the first thing you notice is how little has cooled and how much has warmed.

From the map you'll also notice that it's only a part of Antarctica that has cooled, as is referenced in the article by Dr Wingham (author of the article you quoted). This localised cooling is no great mystery or secret.

To help you put it in context here's another quote from Dr Wingham "data show that Antarctica and Greenland are each losing mass overall. Our best estimate of their combined imbalance is about 125 gigatons per year of ice". To put that into context - the amount of ice that's melting every day is the equivalent of the combined body weight of every single person on the planet.

By the way, I know Dr Wingham. We're from the same town, and he's a professor at University College London which is where I studied climatology.

Answer 4

You really need to follow the energy trail to get a good idea about this stuff. The ice on the south pole has ~95% of all the fresh water on Earth and it takes a lot of energy to change its temperature one way or the other. Where is the energy coming from to change the temperature? If you can figure that out you will know why the global warming thing is just a model gone astray.

Answer 5

Why Is Antarctica Colder Since 1957?




cause there ain't no bush to hide behind!

Answer 6

Dude!! It is now CLIMATE CHANGE.. Where have you been? Antarctica or Atlantis or
Atlanta.. You do know that in this religion the true believers pick and choose what seems to fit their religious leader Albert Gorlioni"s conceptual misperceptions at the time -- not what is reality. What is scarry is that the chief "Democrat in a Republican suit" GWB has bought in to this crap and is now towing the line at the G8 conference,, the traitor quit Christianity, which he seemed to embrace when he was first elected.

Answer 7

I may be wrong but here is my guess. Ice at the South Pole is melting
thus cooling the water and air, the faster it melts the more is cools.
But if the ice all melts the South pole will warm up an considerable amount.
So, more ice is melting at the South Pole now then in 1957.

Answer 8

probably the same reason that a glass of water along with the air around it gets colder as ice melts.