Antarctic Peninsula Stopped Warming 30 Years Ago

By Paul Homewood  

 

 

We are doubtlessly all aware of claims that the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming parts of the world. The implication is clear, that this is global warming in action.

Yet the story is not quite all that it appears.

 

 

Let’s look at the GISS temperature records for Rothera and Faraday, on the west side of the peninsula, and the Argentine stations of Esperanza and Marambio on the east. At all four stations, there was a sharp rise in temperatures between 1980 and 1983, since when temperatures appear to have been fairly stable.

We can also see from the longer records at Faraday and Esperanza that there was a similar jump in the 1960’s.

 

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/

 

Since 1983, there have been ups and downs, notably the drop in the early 1990’s associated with the Pinatubo eruption, but clearly temperatures now are no higher than they were in the mid 1980’s.

Indeed, as we see below, the trend since 2000 is flat at Faraday, and falling at Esperanza.  

 

 

 

There is strong evidence to suggest that the temperature increase observed on the Peninsula has nothing to do with “global warming”, but is due to changing wind patterns. We can speculate on the cause of such changes, but essentially we are looking at natural variation which is likely to have happened in previous eras. (For more, see here.)

But the significant point about these temperature trends is that there was a step change, but that since then temperatures have stopped increasing. There is no evidence to suggest that temperatures will increase in future years, and, until we understand better the reasons for the step change, there is a possibility that temperatures will fall back in the future.