Scientists Confirm Global Warming at Both Poles

Well, they got their headline. How data taken solely from coastal areas can be either consistent or conclusive is beyond me. A decadal alteration in oceanic wind patterns will generate wonderful trends and say absolutely nothing about the average temperature of the continent itself.

The bottom line in all this and clearly spelled out in this report is that no one is doing a proper job of determining what is going on over the Antarctic as a whole.

Yet I for one would like to know. The reason is that the center of the continent should have the least variation on a year to year basis of ant place on Earth. That means that we can measure the gross heat and follow how it is affected by any incoming heat.

In simple terms, if the temperature of the globe has changed by half a degree then it should show up as at a far higher resolution here than anywhere else.

Scientists Confirm Global Warming at North and South Poles

By Jessica Berman

Washington30 October 2008

Scientists have created a climate model that they say proves human activity is responsible for global warming not only at the North Pole, but at the South Pole as well. The model includes data from Antarctica about which relatively little is known. VOA's Jessica Berman reports.

While studies are reasonably clear on the role of carbon emissions by humans in causing global warming in the Arctic, less is know about the causes of warming in Antarctica because of its remoteness.

Some experts believe it is due to greenhouse gases while others believe changes in the Antarctic landscape are due to natural fluctuations in climate.

In a study in this week's issue of Nature Geoscience, an international team of scientists reports on the results of a new model they say proves the human footprint in global warming in the Antarctic.

The model incorporates 100 years worth of temperature data from the Arctic and about 50 years of recorded temperatures from stations in Antarctica.

The temperatures in the Antarctic were gathered along the coastal areas, according to scientists, because it is too difficult to get to the continent's interior.

When the temperature data from both continents were plugged into the model, scientists say it clearly showed the human effects of global warming in the South Pole.

Andrew Monaghan is with the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. He wrote the News and Views article in Nature.

"That's why this study is so important because it formally demonstrates the human contribution to [global warming] for the first time," he said.

In a teleconference with reporters, Monaghan said substantial warming has been detected along up to half of Antarctica's frozen coastlines that will lead to an even greater rise in sea levels.

"While nothing catastrophic is envisioned in the next century, there could be a substantial acceleration in the [ice] melt," he said.

Monaghan expects the effects of global warming will at the Poles even after humans stop putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

2007 Methane Anomaly

This bit is a complete surprise but correlates to the warm weather of 2007. Everyone is trying to establish a cause and effect relationship between an increase in atmospheric methane and a warmer climate. I think that is a mistake. Methane is heading at speed for the troposphere where it will not affect the lower atmosphere.

A better explanation may well be that the unusual warming patterns released a surplus of methane from the soils around the world and generated these unusual readings.

Methane is unstable and highly reactive in the atmosphere with any surplus been removed into the troposphere. All natural conditions converge on quickly removing methane from the atmosphere.

The speed of that removal is confirmed by the lack of persistence of land generated methane out over the oceans. If methane has risen at all then something is and has changed in the here and now.

I expect that these figures will not be repeated for 2008.


MIT scientists baffled by global warming theory, contradicts scientific data

Trendwatch

By Rick C. Hodgin


Thursday, October 30, 2008 09:55

Boston (MA) - Scientists at MIT have recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels. This is the first increase in ten years, and what baffles science is that this data contradicts theories stating man is the primary source of increase for this greenhouse gas. It takes about one full year for gases generated in the highly industrial northern hemisphere to cycle through and reach the southern hemisphere. However, since all worldwide levels rose simultaneously throughout the same year, it is now believed this may be part of a natural cycle in mother nature - and not the direct result of man's contributions.

Methane - powerful greenhouse gas

The two lead authors of a paper published in this week's Geophysical Review Letters, Matthew Rigby and Ronald Prinn, the TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry in MIT's Department


of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science, state that as a result of the increase, several million tons of new methane is present in the atmosphere.

Methane accounts for roughly one-fifth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, though its effect is 25x greater than that of carbon dioxide. Its impact on global warming comes from the reflection of the sun's light back to the Earth (like a greenhouse). Methane is typically broken down in the atmosphere by the free radical hydroxyl (OH), a naturally occurring process. This atmospheric cleanser has been shown to adjust itself up and down periodically, and is believed to account for the lack of increases in methane levels in Earth's atmosphere over the past ten years despite notable simultaneous increases by man.

More study

Prinn has said, "The next step will be to study [these changes] using a very high-resolution atmospheric circulation model and additional measurements from other networks. The key thing is to better determine the relative roles of increased methane emission versus [an increase] in the rate of removal. Apparently we have a mix of the two, but we want to know how much of each [is responsible for the overall increase]."

The primary concern now is that 2007 is long over. While the collected data from that time period reflects a simultaneous world-wide increase in emissions, observing atmospheric trends now is like observing the healthy horse running through the paddock a year after it overcame some mystery illness. Where does one even begin? And how relevant are any of the data findings at this late date? Looking back over 2007 data as it was captured may prove as ineffective if the data does not support the high resolution details such a study requires.

One thing does seem very clear, however; science is only beginning to get a handle on the big picture of global warming. Findings like these tell us it's too early to know for sure if man's impact is affecting things at the political cry of "alarming rates." We may simply be going through another natural cycle of warmer and colder times - one that's been observed through a scientific analysis of the Earth to be naturally occuring for hundreds of thousands of years.Project funding

Rigby and Prinn carried out this study with help from researchers at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Bristol and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Methane gas measurements came from the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), which is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Australian CSIRO network.