Global Warming Causes Cooling In Antarctica ( Or Maybe It’s Just Natural!)
By Paul Homewood
Nature World News report:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers explain why global warming has led to Arctic losing sea ice, but the same has not been observed in Antarctica.
Over the past few years, Arctic has shown considerable reduction in sea ice levels due to global warming. However, Antarctica has cooled and has even gained some ice recently. A new study suggests that ocean circulation can explain why the polar regions have different reactions towards rise in earth’s temperature.
John Marshall, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Oceanography at MIT and colleagues used computer models to see how ocean dynamics is changing the effects of global warming.
MIT scientists found that Southern Ocean and North Atlantic Ocean absorbs excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions. But the heat doesn’t stay there; instead, oceanic circulation redistributes the heat around the equator.
In the Southern Ocean, strong, northward-flowing currents send the heat to the equator, while northward-flowing current system in the Northern Atlantic takes the heat towards the Arctic. The study shows that oceanic currents redistribute the heat in such a way that Arctic experiences accelerated warming, while Antarctica warms up mildly.
The study even found that the ozone hole over the Antarctica has briefly paused sea ice loss in the region. Scientists said that when they accounted for the ozone hole in their model, they found that winds over the Southern Ocean grew faster and shifted southwards. These winds initially cool the area. But, the process eventually begins to warm the Antarctic and shrinks the ice cover.
"Around Antarctica, the ozone hole may have delayed warming due to greenhouse gases by several decades," Marshall said in a news release. "I’m tempted to speculate that this is the period through which we are now passing. However, by 2050, ozone hole-effects may instead add to the warming around Antarctica, an effect that will diminish as the ozone hole heals."
"The researchers present a useful and timely reminder that the ocean is not a passive bath tub when it comes to climate change, but play an active role in shaping the spatial structure of climate change," said Richard Seagar, the Palisades Geophysical Institute/Lamont Research Professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who was not involved in the study.
The study is published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
There are a number of points here:-
1) They are now admitting that Antarctica is actually cooling. This rather puts the kybosh on the “Melting glaciers” theory.
2) There a number of references to models, so it appears we can take the whole study with a hefty shovelful of salt. I particularly had to laugh at:
Scientists said that when they accounted for the ozone hole in their model
3) They talk of excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions. But what evidence do they have that it is “excessive”. What they are actually describing are perfectly natural ocean currents and cycles. He presents no evidence that these natural processes are doing anything different than what they have done for centuries.
4) What we are left with is that ocean currents have contributed to a warming Arctic and cooling Antarctic.
This graphic and description illustrates nicely how ocean currents naturally redistribute water around the world.
Decades of research on ocean currents have revealed that there is a large scale oceanic circulation system. The Gulfstream that moves into the North Atlantic finally sinks as it cools and returns south across the Atlantic seafloor, flows as a bottom current into the South Atlantic, and then rises to the surface again in the Indian Ocean and the Eastern Pacific, only to warm up (absorbing heat from overlying air masses) and turn west to feed back into the Gulfstream. Actually, the sinking of the Gulf Stream is not so much a consequence of cooling and density increase, but one of salinity. Equatorial surface waters are more saline (high evaporation), and the waters of the North Atlantic are less saline (because they mix with meltwater [low salinity] from icebergs and from the Greenland ice cap). Thus, once the Gulfstream cools sufficiently it is heavier that the lower salinity North Atlantic seawater and sinks. A complete run through this current system is estimated to take about 1000 years.
http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/1425chap4.htm
Note that the complete run takes 1000 years. The idea that such a system, associated as it is with the enormous heat capacity of the ocean, could be hijacked in the space of a few years is frankly junk science.
Finally, a real scientist does not say “I’m tempted to speculate”, and expect to be treated seriously.
The real story can be seen in the sea temperatures in the Southern Ocean. Below are the SST Anomalies, from NOAA, of the ocean between 60S and 70S, the area where sea ice is expanding. ( The anomalies are set on a baseline of 1971-2000).
There’s not much sign of any excess heat there.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
No straw is left unclutched though Paul.
Slightly O/T but –
I have always been a lukewamer believing that higher levels of CO2 must add some heat to the balance and it is more than 50 years since I sat in a room having the Greenhouse Effect explained to me. So it must be as the scientists say mustn’t it?
90% of CO2’s effect as GHG is in the first 50 parts per million and any further CO2 is purely deminishing returns.
Some scientists working in astronomy have pointed out that venus (atmosphere 95% CO2) against Earth (atmosphere 0.04% CO2 ) have surface temps that are determined purely by their distance from the Sun.
Now if this piece of work is correct CO2 is not much of a GHG at all.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/new-paper-questions-basic-physics.html
The 35 minute YouTube video is well worth a watch.
The GCM models assume a near blackbody response for CO2.
‘Never trust a press release’ should be stamped as a caveat on all press releases!
Here’s the paper’s abstract: http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/2019/20130040
This says that “the Southern Ocean around Antarctica has been (mainly) cooling and sea-ice extent growing” and that they are referring explicitly to “sea-surface temperature (SST)”.
This, they say, has delayed Antarctic warming, with ozone depletion contributing to the delayed response. The abstract doesn’t at any stage state that there has been no warming at all over the Antarctic land mass; just that the warming response there was delayed, compared to the Arctic, and that it is likely to accelerate further in future.
In fact, as we can see from UAH satellite data, the Antarctic land area (SoPol/Land) has been warming more strongly over the past 5 years than any other major region on earth (0.72 C/decade): http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt
Yes, but it’s only warmed back to where it was in 1990!
That’s true, but it hasn’t cooled, and the paper doesn’t say that it has, despite the best efforts of the (typically) dire press release.
This is not an uncommon problem with Press Releases.
This one appears to have come from/via MIT themselves.
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/solving-polar-climate-conundrum
Why is it that this and other papers are misrepresented at the Press Release stage?
BTW David.
The full paper says
By contrast, the eastern Antarctic and Antarctic plateau have cooled, primarily in summer, with warming over the Antarctic Peninsula and Patagonia [over the last few decades]
Further to my comment above, Paul’s points 1-4 can be addressed as follows:
1) The paper doesn’t say that the Antarctic land mass is cooling. In fact that would contradict the data we have about Antarctic temperatures over the recent past (see UAH link above). In any case, as the IPCC AR5 report made clear, glacial melt in Antarctica results from bottom melt of ice shelves due to relatively warm sub-surface ocean temperatures. Very little Antarctic glacial melt, if any, is thought to be caused by increased surface temperatures. It may be getting ‘warmer’, but it ain’t ‘warm’!
2) Everyone is entitled to their own view on the efficacy of models.
3) The ‘excess heat’ referred to is presumably the observed imbalance between incoming and outgoing planetary radiation. Several papers have now concluded that much of this excess has been absorbed by the oceans.
4) The paper doesn’t say that Antarctica as a whole has been cooling; just that SSTs around it have cooled. Indications are that Southern Ocean heat content has increased even though SSTs have cooled.
There seems to be nothing in the paper that is not accounted for by normal oceanic processes.
On the contrary, it is all “model based”. You should not confuse “models” with “reality”. Where is the evidence that anything they have theorised at has not happened thousands of times before?
Also, surely any glacier melt that you mention is confined to a very small part of Antarctics on the Peninsula. SST’s indicate that around the vast majority of the continent, sea temperatures are colder , not warmer. After all, it is around East Antarctica that sea ice is expanding rapidly, rather than the Peninsula.
Given the enormous inertia and slow rate of change in the oceans, where is the evidence that what we are seeing now was not set in motion decades or centuries ago?
Paul. Antarctica cannot be cooling.
Only 2 months ago Matt McGrath, the BBC’s famed doomsayer, told us categorically “Climate change is helping an inconspicuous sea moss animal spread rapidly in Antarctica, say scientists.
The warmer temperatures have helped Fenestrulina rugula to thrive at the expense of other species.
The sea off the peninsula is freezing less so more icebergs are battering the shores, smashing the creatures that live there.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27831958
Accepting that the headline is very misleading (probably a BBC editorial thing), the report itself refers specifically, on several occasions, to this specific phenomenon being observed on the “Antarctic Peninsula”.
It’s a fact that the sea off the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula has declined. Sea ice has expanded elsewhere around Antarctica, but not at that particular location.
It’s also a fact that land surface temperatures across Antarctica have increased over the past few years, reaching their highest point, relative to average, last September (according to the UAH satellite record).
I agree with you about the BBC framing of this, as evidenced by the misleading headline.
Here’s a suggestion: when scientists discover something which they believe the public needs to know about, they should call their own press conference and speak directly to the public, rather than through the media.
At your point (3) Paul,”ocean absorbs heat from G.H. gas emissions”,but oceans do not absorb these infra red emissions.At least that’s what I think they are saying.
“MIT scientists found that Southern Ocean and North Atlantic Ocean absorbs excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions. But the heat doesn’t stay there; instead, oceanic circulation redistributes the heat around the equator. ”
Now that is a real pearl of wisdom !!! They must have discovered a new law of physics, where a cold water transfer heat to warm one… Are we on the same planet?
but there has been no global warming for at least 13+ years (up to almost 18). how then can global warming, cause arctic ice melt and antarctic ice gain over that time period if there hasn’t been any global warming!?!?
since all models are wrong, but some useful, this one falls under the “wrong and not useful” category…
Oh good, more settled science to read.
🙂
The cooling of the southern oceans is quite interesting as it is happening at a time when global SSTs have been warming. Looking at the NOAA Reynolds weekly numbers August 14 is going to set a yet another new high, June and July already higher than the previous peak in 1998.
It would appear that the cooling of the southern oceans is being more than balanced out with a warming of the northern oceans, especially the Pacific which has warmed strongly in the last two years.
Going to be interesting to watch whether this persists or is just indicative of cyclical ocean circulation. Time as always…..
Apart from the fact that the oceans do not absorb the so called G.H. emissions, it has long been known that the Arctic and Antarctic have a warm/cold see-saw relationship that as far as I know has not yet been explained.
CO2 is an all-powerful god!
Repent and convert to the new cult! (not new, but still …)
And my wish for the new priests: Stop breathing.