Antarctica Not Warming As Expected

Global warming is hot news this month! (Pun intended!)

A new report on climate over the world’s southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models.

This comes soon after the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that strongly supports the conclusion that the Earth’s climate as a whole is warming, largely due to human activity.

As we've said before, climate models are flawed.

“It’s hard to see a global warming signal from the mainland of Antarctica right now,” he said. “Part of the reason is that there is a lot of variability there. It’s very hard in these polar latitudes to demonstrate a global warming signal. This is in marked contrast to the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula that is one of the most rapidly warming parts of the Earth.”

Bromwich says that the problem rises from several complications. The continent is vast, as large as the United States and Mexico combined. Only a small amount of detailed data is available – there are perhaps only 100 weather stations on that continent compared to the thousands spread across the U.S. and Europe. And the records that we have only date back a half-century.

Again, as we've said. 50 years of data is no way to judge if the planet is warming, cooling or about to explode. It simply is not enough data. You don't judge a year's worth of Stock data on the first hour of trading, do you? It's almost comparable. 100 weather stations on the continent? Is that really enough to judge if a continent is warming or not. Antarctica is bigger than Europe, yet has about 10% of the weather stations that Europe does and you want to say global warming is definite? Puh-lease.

Here's your junk science alert. Mixed with the "Is Antarctica getting cooler?" alert:

“The best we can say right now is that the climate models are somewhat inconsistent with the evidence that we have for the last 50 years from continental Antarctica.

“We’re looking for a small signal that represents the impact of human activity and it is hard to find it at the moment,” he said.

Last year, Bromwich’s research group reported in the journal Science that Antarctic snowfall hadn’t increased in the last 50 years. “What we see now is that the temperature regime is broadly similar to what we saw before with snowfall. In the last decade or so, both have gone down,” he said.

We are "looking for a small signal"? *sniff sniff* Ah, yes, the thinly veiled aroma of an agenda. Nice. When you are looking for a conclusion to prove, you are not practicing science. You are praticing activism.

Snowfall and temperatures have both decreased over the past 50 years now? It's getting colder in Antarctica? Is this what I'm being told here. As Al Gore visited Antarctica recently? He has a knack for causing the coldest days on record to occur.

What's more, perhaps, is the breakup of the Antarctic shelf being caused by wind? Specifically, the westerlies?

“The westerlies have intensified over the last four decades of so, increasing in strength by as much as perhaps 10 to 20 percent,” he said. “This is a huge amount of ocean north of Antarctica and we’re only now understanding just how important the winds are for things like mixing in the Southern Ocean.” The ocean mixing both dissipates heat and absorbs carbon dioxide, one of the key greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Some researchers are suggesting that the strengthening of the westerlies may be playing a role in the collapse of ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula.

“The peninsula is the most northern point of Antarctica and it sticks out into the westerlies,” Bromwich says. “If there is an increase in the westerly winds, it will have a warming impact on that part of the continent, thus helping to break up the ice shelves, he said.

So winds have intensified over the past 40 years and this may be causing the Antarctic breakup? Not SUVs and Americans? Why is this not in in IPCC report?

Finally, we end with this:

Bromwich said the disagreement between climate model predictions and the snowfall and temperature records doesn’t necessarily mean that the models are wrong.

Perhaps. But it certainly means that they are not right, doesn't it - at least not globally? We are basing geopolitical decisions on flawed models.

 Update: As if on cue, Al Gore may be planning a rock concert on Antarctica! (hattip: HotAir)

Al Gore, the former vice president and now hit documentary maker, on Thursday added rock promoter to his résumé, announcing plans for a 24-hour concert series on all seven continents to highlight, you guessed it, the dangers of global warming.

That makes sense. In the coldest place on Earth, the place you already fear is warming and would flood the planet. Bring in a ton of people; lights, heat generating equipment to warm it up quicker. Love it. Love it.