top | item 34568159

Low Antarctic continental climate sensitivity due to high ice sheet orography

54 points| bilsbie | 3 years ago |nature.com | reply

14 comments

order
[+] gmuslera|3 years ago|reply
Not having an ocean below helps to isolate a bit from all the heat that the oceans has been absorbing. Around the north pole the average temperature is 4+ºC above the average of 1950-1980.

And yet, that isolation is not so good. A year ago the temperature in the Concordia station at a 3km height was 40ºC over its average temperature for that time of the year (https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-03-30/a-heatwav...).

[+] xwdv|3 years ago|reply
I guess the term “global warming” is inaccurate. More like, equatorial warming.
[+] tgv|3 years ago|reply
It's called (anthropogenic, i.e. man-made) climate change nowadays. Because pumping a lot of energy in the atmosphere and oceans can also cool down regions, or make the range between extremes wider, or cause more torments and downfall.
[+] ajross|3 years ago|reply
That's not what this paper proposes. And it's wrong anyway: antarctic ocean waters absolutely are warming (c.f. the collapse of the floating ice sheets). The observation here is that the continental interior isn't showing the same changes. And as I scan the abstract, the model seems to be just simple buffering: lots of sub-freezing deep ice can absorb lots of heat without appreciable changes in surface temperature.
[+] jfengel|3 years ago|reply
The poles are more sensitive, and you can see that at the north pole, where it is warming much faster than the equator.

The south pole doesn't exhibit that increase, which requires explanation. The obvious answer would be the land mass covered in ice serving as a heat sink, but the paper suggests that it's more about elevation.

[+] EdwardDiego|3 years ago|reply
Well, the atmosphere is retaining more energy, but you've perfectly encapsulated why the terminology moved to climate change.
[+] tomrod|3 years ago|reply
I know folks don't like to talk about increases in variance, but why not increase in mean and more variance?