Peer-Reviewed Study Confirms Antarctica Has Not Warmed in Last Seven Decades
By Paul Homewood
Repost from Climate Realism
Cancel all the claims by climate activists that global warming is decimating Antarctica. A peer-reviewed study recently published in one of the most prominent science journals destroys one of the most frequently asserted claims by climate activists – that climate change is warming Antarctica and melting the Antarctic ice sheet. The recent study confirms Antarctica has not warmed in the past 70 years and Antarctic ice cover is expanding rather than shrinking.
Writing in the journal Nature, scientists at Columbia University and the University of Victoria, British Columbia report, “The Antarctic continent has not warmed in the last seven decades, despite a monotonic increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases.”
Abstract
The Antarctic continent has not warmed in the last seven decades, despite a monotonic increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. In this paper, we investigate whether the high orography of the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) has helped delay warming over the continent. To that end, we contrast the Antarctic climate response to CO2-doubling with present-day orography to the response with a flattened AIS. To corroborate our findings, we perform this exercise with two different climate models. We find that, with a flattened AIS, CO2-doubling induces more latent heat transport toward the Antarctic continent, greater moisture convergence over the continent and, as a result, more surface-amplified condensational heating. Greater moisture convergence over the continent is made possible by flattening of moist isentropic surfaces, which decreases humidity gradients along the trajectories on which extratropical poleward moisture transport predominantly occurs, thereby enabling more moisture to reach the pole. Furthermore, the polar meridional cell disappears when the AIS is flattened, permitting greater CO2-forced warm temperature advection toward the Antarctic continent. Our results suggest that the high elevation of the present AIS plays a significant role in decreasing the susceptibility of the Antarctic continent to CO2-forced warming.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-020-00143-w
The only area of warming is around the Antarctic Peninsula, but even here temperatures stopped rising in the 1990s.
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/STATIONS/tmp_AYM00089062_14_0_1/station.png
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The UAH data for the last 42 years shows that too.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/01/11/global-warming-dec2020/
The UAH data show that same pattern for the last 42 years.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/01/11/global-warming-dec2020/
Very interesting graphs, in simple terms I think that they show that the variation is substantial and that quite a large range of values are normal. This is a bit like using the standard deviation of temperature over time: it would seem that there is no actual trend, just variance.
“we contrast the Antarctic climate response to CO2-doubling with present-day orography to the response with a flattened AIS. … We find that, with a flattened AIS, CO2-doubling induces more latent heat transport toward the Antarctic continent …,”
This is a chicken and egg argument. Which comes first? They are going to need a lot of bulldozers to do that initial flattening /sarc
“Our results suggest that the high elevation of the present AIS plays a significant role in decreasing the susceptibility of the Antarctic continent to CO2-forced warming.”
So at 3 km elevation the air is colder than at sea level
Meteorology 101
It is staying very cold down there. The comments about the models reflect the common misconception that these models are precise physical models of reality. They contain loads of empirically assumed factors that are adjusted (fiddled) to give an answer that looks right.
Models can work reasonably and be very useful, once properly calibrated and validated, over small perturbations but are useless when the change is larger. This can be seen in economics models that failed to predict the financial crash in 2008, the treasury models that have predicted all sorts of gloom and doom if Brexit occurred etc.
Sadly, many scientists are bemused by models that cover fields outside of their own, and climate “science” is thoroughly in that mode: clouds, oceanic movements and radiation in the atmosphere are not well understood. But the science is “proven”???
The only part of Antarctica that is melting is the western ice sheet, which is directly above active underwater volcanoes. This was discovered in 2014, but surprise surprise has been completely ignored.
Also ignored are the studies in the 80s that documented the presence man-made CFCs in the deep abyssal waters of the Weddell Sea. What downwells has to upwell somewhere else.
That’s one report we won’t hear about on the BBC
“The Antarctic continent has not warmed in the last seven decades, despite a monotonic increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases.”
“Gases”? Which gas is on the chopping block next? These are correctly identified as the perfectly normal and natural “atmospheric gases” they are. The ONLY place you will find a “greenhouse gas” is the natural atmospheric gases within the confines of a greenhouse. PERIOD!
If one takes the annual Mauna Loa CO2 data (1960 on) and plots the year-over-year increase it is no longer monotonic and seems to correlate with the stronger El-Nino and La-Nina years. That is not true for global mean temperatures where the year-over-year values show little or no trend with time.
It is not nice to confuse people with the facts…….
Hopefully such papers signal a cooling of the AGW fever
Good news!
I would be a lot happier with “Our results suggest that the high elevation of the present AIS plays a significant role in decreasing the susceptibility of the Antarctic continent to CO2-forced warming” if they could bring themselves to leave it the phrase “CO2-forced”. It has no place in a scientific study unless it can be proved that only CO2-forced warming (assuming such a thing exists) is affected.
Mike,
” Our results suggest that the high elevation of the present AIS plays a significant role in decreasing the susceptibility of the Antarctic continent to CO2-forced warming.”
They were kind of getting there, but still had to have the AGW shibboleth of “carbon pollution” at the centre of their analysis.
Not in the slightest – they simply run another climate model with the Antarctic flat and lo and behold it warms! Observations not matching forecasts? Change the observation via the model and it does.
Ho hum this appeared in NATURE? This is hockey stick contaminated ‘Nature’? ‘Nature’ of the alarmist camp? ‘The ice is breaking up on every side’ (Belloc)
Because it’s not quite saying what is claimed. It simply says the models forget that Antarctica is mountainous.
From the paper…”However, numerous studies with realistic models have convincingly shown that ozone depletion (which increases the amount of shortwave radiation reaching the surface) has in fact contributed to warmer SSTs and decreased sea ice extent.”
Realistic studies would show that increased UV radiation into the Antarctic ozone hole is seasonal and short-lived… and the ozone depletion that takes place is rapidly restored after the Sun reappears. Ultracold conditions in the stratosphere are required with the polar vortex in control. How this could contribute to warm SSTs and decreased sea ice extent is puzzling.
So they admit there’s been no warming then claim it would have happened had Antarctica been flat?
They don’t even seem to examine whether there’s been no warming because the models they then sue are wrong. It’s quite bizarre how stupid scientists have become – the observation doesn’t fit with the forecast, but instead of questioning the source of the forecast they instead run the model with a different assumption and then it’s right.
What will it take for at least some to question the orthodoxy?