The Ice Age is coming! Antartica is warming!

A new reconstruction of Antarctic surface temperature.

In recent years, scientists have struggled to explain measurements which seemed to indicate that Antarctica has been cooling – a trend much relied on by the denialist lobby to give support to their message that the earth has started cooling and we are on our way to a new Ice age. Well not any more. New research published in Nature has found that, in fact, the iciest continent is undergoing the same changes as the rest of the planet.

“What we did is we took advantage of the fact that, in fact, there is data. There’s over 25 years now of data from satellites, which provides an alternative way to measure the temperature,” Professor Steig said.

By correlating the two, the research team believes it has come up with an accurate picture stretching back half a century, and it shows western Antarctica especially has been getting warmer by about a 10th of a degree every decade.

“What we found, in a nutshell, is that Antarctica is not cooling,” Professor Steig said.

“Now some parts of it have been cooling, but only since the late 1970s, and only in certain seasons, primarily in autumn.

“On average the entire continent is warming and especially it is warming in winter and spring. Finally, west Antarctica, just like the Antarctic peninsula, is warming in all seasons.”

But new research has found that, in fact, the iciest continent is undergoing the same changes as the rest of the planet.

Scientists find evidence Antartica is warming – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

A cold day in January will have the good folks at Jennifer Marohasy’s blog in a frenzy of AGW denunciation before morning tea. Strangely, no-one there has posted on this yet. Maybe they’re all on holiday, or the hot weather has them re-examining temperature data for counter-trends. But then again, Nature is a notorious hotbed of unscrupulous warmaholic climatologists rigging data to fit the AGW narrative so they can maintain their funding grants and turn us all into socialists. Or something.

Filed under: Environment, Science, Antartica, ClimateChange, Denialism, Jennifer Marohasy