Posted on 01/22/2002 7:56:47 AM PST by madfly
Washington File
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Scientists report that temperatures on the Antarctic continent have fallen steadily for more than two decades despite an average increase in air temperature experienced by the rest of the planet.
According to a January 13 press release, researchers with the National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in Antarctica's Dry Valleys adjacent to McMurdo Sound have found that the seasonally averaged surface air temperature has dropped by 0.7 degrees Celsius per decade since the 1980s. They have observed similar downward trends across the rest of the continent since 1978, confirming a continental cooling trend.
Their paper, published January 13 in the online version of the journal Nature, says the cooling trend occurred despite a global average increase in air temperature of 0.06 degrees Celsius during the 20th century, making Antarctica unique among the Earth's continental landmasses.
The scientists report that the latest findings are puzzling because many climate models indicate that the Polar Regions should serve as bellwethers for any global warming trend, responding first and most rapidly to an increase in temperatures.
Researcher Peter Doran, lead author of the paper, said the findings of continental cooling across Antarctica present a challenge to climate modelers. "Although some do predict areas of cooling, widespread cooling is a bit of a conundrum that the models need to start to account for," he said.
More information about the Dry Valleys LTER project can be found at http://huey.colorado.edu/LTER/
Following is the text of the press release:
(begin text)
National Science Foundation
January 13, 2002
Pondering a Climate Conundrum in Antarctica
Unique, distinct cooling trend discovered on Earth's southernmost continent
Antarctica overall has cooled measurably during the last 35 years - despite a global average increase in air temperature of 0.06 degrees Celsius during the 20th century - making it unique among the Earth's continental landmasses, according to a paper published today in the online version of Nature.
Researchers with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) site in Antarctica's Dry Valleys - a perpetually snow-free, mountainous area adjacent to McMurdo Sound - argue in the paper that long-term data from weather stations across the continent, coupled with a separate set of measurements from the Dry Valleys, confirm each other and corroborate the continental cooling trend.
"Our 14-year continuous weather station record from the shore of Lake Hoare reveals that seasonally averaged surface air temperature has decreased by 0.7 degrees Celsius per decade," they write. "The temperature decrease is most pronounced in summer and autumn. Continental cooling, especially the seasonality of cooling, poses challenges to models of climate and ecosystem change."
The findings are puzzling because many climate models indicate that the Polar Regions should serve as bellwethers for any global warming trend, responding first and most rapidly to an increase in temperatures. An ice sheet many kilometers thick in places perpetually covers almost all of Antarctica.
Temperature anomalies also exist in Greenland, the largest ice sheet in the Northern Hemisphere, with cooling in the interior concurrent with warming at the coast.
Peter Doran of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the lead author of the paper, and his co-authors, acknowledge that other studies conducted in Antarctica have deduced a warming trend elsewhere in the continent. But they note that the data indicate that the warming occurred between 1958 and 1978. They also note that the previous claims that Antarctic is warming may have been skewed because the measurements were taken largely on the Antarctic Peninsula, which extends northwards toward South America. The Peninsula itself is warming dramatically, the authors' note, and there are many more weather stations on the Peninsula than elsewhere on the continent.
Averaging the temperature readings from the more numerous stations on the Peninsula has led to the misleading conclusion that there is a net warming continent-wide. "Our approach shows that if you remove the Peninsula from the dataset, and look at the spatial trend, the majority of the continent is cooling," said Doran.
He added that documentation of the continental cooling presents a challenge to climate modelers. "Although some do predict areas of cooling, widespread cooling is a bit of a conundrum that the models need to start to account for," he said.
The Dry Valleys are the largest ice-free area in Antarctica, a desert region that encompasses perennially ice-covered lakes, ephemeral streams, arid soils, exposed bedrock and alpine glaciers. All life there is microscopic.
The team argues that the cooling trend could adversely affect the unique ecosystems in the region, which live in a niche where a delicate balance between freezing and warmer temperatures allows them to survive and where liquid water is only available during the very brief summer. They argue that a net cooling of the continent could drastically upset that balance.
"We present data from the Dry Valleys representing the first evidence of rapid terrestrial ecosystem response to climate cooling in Antarctica, including decreased lake primary productivity and declining soil invertebrates," they write.
Their data, they argue, are "the first to highlight the cascade of ecological consequences that result from the recent summer cooling."
For more information about the Dry Valleys LTER, see: http://huey.colorado.edu/LTER/
For more information about NSF's network of LTER sites, see: http://lternet.edu/
NSF is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, with an annual budget of about $4.8 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states, through grants to about 1,800 universities and institutions nationwide. Each year, NSF receives about 30,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes about 10,000 new funding awards. NSF also awards over $200 million in professional and service contracts yearly.
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov) NNNN $$$$
Haha! Well, of course they would find it puzzling.
For the same reason I find Edgar Rice Burrough's Science Fiction stories about Mars puzzling!
The suveyors and landers and orbiters have NOT FOUND ANY CANALS, nor kingdoms, nor swashbuckling heroes!!!!
What is WRONG with them!
Help...I am so PUZZLED! Hahahaha!
The Ice Age Cometh.
Save the ozone!!!
Freon!! We need Freon!!!
If one pole melts and the other freezes more won't that put us out of balance? Won't the Earth begin to wobble on it's axis? I'm not a scientist, of course, but I would sure like to hear someone in the knows opinion about what this could mean.
Never fear - the greenies will always find some way to retrofit their doomsday scenario to not only account for this, but to make it sound as if this is actually an indication that things are even worse than they previously thought....
I would appreciate a knowledgeable opinion also.
I have read about a possible Pole-Shift. Don't know
what effect that would have
on atmospheric conditions or gravitational pulls.
Make that a knowledgeable, apolitical opinion.
Statements like "swans are farther north than ever before" can not possibly be substantiated. No one knows where swans were in the year 8,765 B.C. And even if this is true, and the tree line is moving farther north, what does this mean? Is it bad? Why?
The temperature of the Earth is not in "equilibrium". It does not and was never meant to stay exactly the same everywhere. It changes and evolves. It is different in different places and the rate at which it changes is different in different places. Sometimes it will warm, sometimes it will cool, and most of the time it will do both in different places.
That is the nature of the planet on which we live. Any large scale cycles are probably due to sunspots or variations in distance from the sun. But whatever the reason, change in the Earth's temperature is to be expected.
This would be true even if humans and our smokestacks didn't exist. Temperature change doesn't necessarily have anything to do with our activity. Neither is there necessarily anything we can possibly do about it, other than adapt to it.
To agonize and worry about it and think of it as a political issue is stupid. It's like making volcanoes a political issue - "stop the volcanoes!" The real reason some politicians use this issue is because scaring the populace into seeing natural temperature change as a human-caused, human-solvable "problem" ends up giving them more power. That's it. It's all about power.
PRESS AND CULTURE SECTION
U.S. EMBASSY, BUCHAREST ROMANIAHomosexual Ambassador causing problems.
Little attention was drawn to Michael Guest's homosexual relationship with his "partner" during his confirmation process as President Bush's ambassador to Romania. However, those working under Guest in Bucharest now find it difficult to avoid his flaunting of the relationship, according to an American embassy worker who recently spoke with FRC.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/607070/posts
[391 posts and counting]
The Earth in fact does wobble on its axis, once every ~26,000 years. This phenomenon is known as "precession of the equinoxes".
That's some serious scientificking going on.
None. The earth has actually switched polarities many times over the years w/ no effect on anything other than minerals in rocks line up in the opposite direction.
Gravitation will have no effect since the earth will have the same mass (this includes the air and surronding particles, not just stuff on or in the earth). Even in a relative manner, any mass change would be like putting a grain of dust on a bowling ball.
Well, yeah! You sound vaguely surprised.
Come on - think, man! If you had an ordinary, mundane theory that was pedestrian enough to be falsifiable, you'd be running the risk that the gravy train might come to a screeching halt someday. No more grants, no more conferences in exotic locales, no more papers in prestigious journals, no more payments from the media to appear and give your "expert" opinion on the impending collapse of the ecosystem, et cetera, et cetera. It may not be "science" in the traditional sense, but you can bet that there are some bona fide scienticians hard at work spending your money to tell you you're a slob.
Sheesh, I bet you're the type who gets all wound up about the "facts" and the "truth". You'll never get tenure with that attitude, my friend....
Not only that but I'll make up reports and give them to Congress
and they will make laws of these reports.
It's ashame that Congress can be so easily lead and take our freedm from us.
Let me give you an example, the clean air act. Carol Browner over ruled her own board of scientist on particle matters.
Here you have one person making decisons for our whole country.
I live in Maryland, I could take every car off the road, shut down all businesses, and I still would not come up to the regulations of the clean air act.
It's all a joke
The scientist from the U.N. make up most of these reports.
all of them N.G.O of the U.N!!!!
by Dr. Tony Phillips
for NASA Science News
Huntsville - Jan 21, 2002
Evidence is mounting that some solar cycles are doubled-peaked. The ongoing solar maximum may itself be a double -- and the second peak has arrived.
Exactly! All of them having conferences and symposiums and then reports, white papers, blah blah blah. A lot of the Conferences are during Summer break and many take place on University Campuses where our future leaders are mis-informed, to put it mildly!
Absolutely. And whatever your point of view, you can always find a "credible" agency that will spew out temperature statistics for you "your way," just like Burger King. Global temps are warming or cooling depending on who provides the data. I just read in Sunday's (ultra-liberal) local paper how NOAA data "proves" the globe is heating up.
Hmm...guess I just never noticed.
I've maintained that extrapolating global warming theory from the existing data is like extrapolating your name, address, and phone number from the color of shirt that you're wearing today.
Futhermore, their computer modeling is based on the same systems that can't accurately predict the temperature for my hometown tomorrow. And they're using them to forecast temps on a global scale 100 years from now? Give me a break.
Would somebody remind the imbeciles who purport to be scientists (and the reporters possessing half the IQ of those guys) that we've had around a half dozen ice ages and sudden global melts in the past million years. The last one was a couple thousand years shy of human recorded history.
Man, I've got kids of school age and I'm really tired of having to correct all the nonsense their teachers fill their heads with.
I strongly feel you are correct regarding the political/power attributes of this situation.
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