Antarctic warming – or not…
I was prompted to write this article after having two media articles thrust at me last week claiming a record high temperature had been seen in Antarctica, and being told here was ‘proof’ of the ‘climate crisis’. The two articles are from Newsweek and the BBC.
I quote this from the Newsweek article:
John King, Senior Atmospheric Scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, told Newsweek he was “a bit surprised” to see the 2015 record broken so quickly. He added: “This is a region of the Antarctic where we do expect to see unusually high temperatures from time to time.” (Emphasis added)
This variation is caused by warm winds from mountains near to the west of the stations. According to King, these can cause temperatures to rise more than 10 C over a few hours – and could be contributing to these unusually high readings, as they did in March 2015. (Emphasis added)
“On their own they are not significant, but as part of a pattern of recent change in the Antarctic they are a cause for concern,” he said.
“It is the most rapidly warming part of the Antarctic, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see this record broken again within the next few years.”
So we can gather that ‘unusually high temperatures’ are often seen on the Antarctic Peninsula, and that it is caused by warm winds. In other words, it’s business as usual. Nature not human-caused climate change.
It is also important to note the last sentence reflects King’s personal opinion, and nothing more.
The ‘record’ temperature headline was generated from readings taken at Base Esperanza, and it’s worth reminding ourselves just where Esperanza is located.
It lies 1839 miles from the South Pole, and 665 miles from the tip of Patagonia, thus while it is on the Antarctic continent, it sits right at the northern tip of the peninsula, and will be considerably warmer than other bases closer to the pole.
It should also be noted Esperanza was built in 1953 and started collecting temperature data in 1961, so any records are from 1961 onwards. Base Orcadas and Base Marambio are also on the northern part of the peninsula.
Orcadas was opened in 1903 and can house 45 people. Temperatures can occasionally rise above freezing during winter. When low pressure systems pass to the south of the base, they can result in exceptionally mild temperatures, with the highest temperature recorded being 15.2 °C in 1987.
In contrast, when low pressure systems pass to the north, it results in cold and dry conditions with good visibility, causing temperatures to fall to around −44C. Marambio was opened in 1969. It has a 4000ft runway and 27 buildings which can host 200 people.
I passed the two articles to a retired data analyst I am acquainted with, and this was his evaluation, using data he downloaded from the Global Historical Climatology Network – Daily database managed by the National Climatic Data Center at Arizona State University (using the KNMI Climate Explorer).
“Antarctica hasn’t hit a record high – Esperanza Base on the peninsula has. Some peninsula bases are warming some are not. This may be due to the Urban Heat Island effect creeping through at certain bases as they develop (Stevenson screens above tarmac airstrips and utility buildings). Esperanza Base hit 18.0°C on 13th March 1979 so the new record (if correct) is only 0.3°C higher and not ‘almost a whole degree’ as claimed. Esperanza only started collecting data in 1961.
In this plot of maximum temperatures recorded at Esperanza for the period 1/1/1961 to 31/12/2019 it is quite clear that there is absolutely no evidence of a warming trend in terms of maximum temperature attained, with the statistically insignificant OLSR warming trend of +0.01°C per decade (green line) indistinguishable from the series mean of 13.41°C (p=0.972). An 18.3°C peak for 2020 is not going to make much difference but we can easily check this out by popping 18.3°C into the data record for 2020 and running OLSR again. This time round we have a statistically insignificant OLSR warming trend of +0.09°C per decade (p=0.516).”
“I thought I’d take a look at the rapid warming claim in terms of mean rather than maximum daily temperature. Herewith the latest monthly mean temperature data to 31/1/2020 for Esperanza Base. We see a definite warming trend and this is estimated at 0.48°C per decade (p<0.001) so, yes, the base is warming at a fair old rate if we consider mean rather than maximum temperature. Folk may wish to puzzle as to why the warming we see at Esperanza is not attributable to increased maxima.”
“There are 15 GHCN-D bases on the peninsular and here is a plot of their combined mean temperature since records began at Orcadas in 1957. This is an odd pattern that reveals cooling between 1957 and 1980, then warming from 1980 – 2005 and then thermal stability since then. Bases coming online in a staggered fashion will no doubt have distorted this trend and we have no idea if they moved or adapted the Stevenson screens. In such a harsh environment instrumentation is likely on the roof of an easily accessible building, so what we have is a murky mixed record of what the bases themselves have been doing as well as the peninsular proper i.e. this is not a truthful snapshot of the climate down there.”
“Herewith monthly mean temperatures for all 15 peninsular bases for the period Jan 2000 – Jan 2020. As I suspected there is absolutely no sign of recent warming let alone rapid warming, with the OLSR trendline (green) fetching up at p=0.582. Rapid warming in terms of mean temperature rise does appear to the case a few years back but there has been no warming on the peninsula for the last 20 years.”
“I’ve now run a trend analysis for all 15 peninsular bases separately. As we may gather from the attached table statistically significant warming (in terms of mean temperature) is occurring at Esperanza, Marambio and Orcadas only. The remaining 12 bases do not exhibit statistically significant warming trends. We may ask why just 3 bases are warming when the vast majority of neighbouring bases are not. My money is on inappropriate Stevenson screen placement.”
It’s difficult to tell if there is any data tampering involved here, the difficulty of measurement and limitations as to where the instruments can be physically placed are going to ensure enough problems as it is. Then there is sample bias – of those 15 bases only 14 are still open in 2020 (Dinamet closed in 2016) and King Sejong came online in 1991.
Bases coming online and going offline can easily skew results, but we are certainly seeing reporting designed to frighten people and produce an emotional response to the imaginary ‘climate emergency’.
I presented the data here to the person who forwarded the media articles to me, and surprise, surprise I’ve heard nothing since.
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Matt
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The warming over the Antarctic Peninsular was caused by a high pressure system over South America with the ridge extending over the peninsular.
To the west of this high pressure system was a front attached to a circumpolar low and between this low/front and the high was an air stream drawing subtropical air from approximately 28 degrees South right over the whole Antarctic peninsular. The air stream was flowing in a South South South West direction with an exceptionally long, straight fetch.
I check out Mean Surface Level Pressure maps for the South Pacific Ocean and the Southern Indian Ocean often on a daily basis and this system was anomalous.
The air stream was coming from a latitude much nearer to the Equator than the most Northerly point of New Zealand but not quite as far North as Brisbane, Australia. I do not know the appropriate South American reference.
I was going to print off the weather map but procrastination got in the way. This weather system occurred around the 6th and 7th February, 2020.
I did get an uncanny feeling that a carbon dioxide molecule could have been in that air flow. (satire)
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Matt and Andy,
I have read Andy’s article, Matt’s comment, and listened to Tony’s ten and half minute video and looked at the wattsup reference. And I found the word ‘adiabatic ‘ being written or spoken only be used in the wattsup reference (5 times). And these references were directly in reference to adiabatic cooling. Although in one case there were other words which got close the phenomenon of adiabatic warming. And Tony got close as he described the warm Chinook winds which descend the east slopes of the Rockies rapidly increase the measured temperatures in these winds path. And every is correct when they state the abnormally warm temperatures are not the result of the carbon dioxide and globally warming.
But no one directly states the higher temperatures are the direct result of atmospheric circulation. About which my favorite meteorologist–R.C. Sutcliffe (Weather and Climate, 1966) wrote: “All this may seem a far cry from the circulation of the world’s atmosphere but the detail serves to point the moral, that one cannot explain the broad features of world climate if one does not know the actual mechanisms involved.”
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Matt,
You comment was first and you began: “The warming over the Antarctic Peninsular was caused by a high pressure system over South America with the ridge extending over the peninsular.”
High pressure system are commonly considered somewhat stable features of a dynamic atmospheric and not something which is here one hour and gone the next like a thunderstorm.
So I looked to see if I could find some detailed data. Which I did find.
(https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/antarctica/esperanza-base/historic)
I do not have much time now to review what I found but it would be even better if you would take a look at the historical data before and after the mentioned high temperature to see what might be a common weather pattern.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Oneshotorgan
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I’m so glad someone has spoken up about these ridiculous claims of “record heat in Antarctica” by the climate nazis.
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Andy Rowlands
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Thanks, when I find evidence to debunk media stories, I write articles like this.
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chris
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An alarmist sees this data and sets to work to write a couple of sentences. A non alarmists sees this and involves others in doing indepth analysis. Based on that alone non alarmists are going to be able to provide a better assessment of the info presented because of the work that they put in.
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Andy Rowlands
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That’s why I like to do this kind of article, as it shows up what was claimed against what was actually recorded.
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Andy Rowlands
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After I submitted the article to PSI, two other things came to light about Antarctic temperatures. First is this video from Tony Heller – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWlBiih1p9Y&feature=em-lsp
…and second is this from wattsupwiththat – https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/09/medias-horribly-dishonest-antarctica-propaganda/?fbclid=IwAR1sBjD3Xy7w6hn77-8AKADf5lxJqAFHoWK6pXSGYXCZCVI8jeogT3IajXs
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T L Winslow
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Linked to this article at:
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-Antarctic-sea-ice-declining-dramatically/answer/TL-Winslow
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K Kaiser
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What a surprise, didn’t know that ice was melting in summer.
The graph showing the 40-year seasonal extent of Antarctic sea-ice extent
https://i1.wp.com/electroverse.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/antarctic-sea-ice-extent.jpeg must be wrong.
Just blame it on the penguins.
Best regards to you all!
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Andy Rowlands
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I wasn’t going to blame it on the sunshine, the moonlight or the good times, I was going to blame it on the boogie 🙂
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Moffin
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Control yourself.
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Andy Rowlands
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Aren’t we allowed a bit of humour?
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Moffin.
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Damn right you are entitled to humour.
Humour can be a part of a survival mechanism.
Andy Rowlands
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Some of these discussions get too maudlin, so I do that kind of thing a lot, using word-association, to make comments often in the vein of Fawlty Towers or Blackadder 🙂
Andy Rowlands
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Haha good one 🙂
Matt
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Hey Andy Rowlands. This storm system about to hammer Western North Scotland and Northern Ireland is going to have it’s presence felt. The 936 barometric pressure in it’s center is lower than any circumpolar Antarctic storm I have seen on a map.
If you are well versed in reading weather maps say the word and I will ignore all but really anomalous weather although this one appears to have a doozie factor.
Some newspaper will write something about this one. The other two low pressure systems are going to feed in separate air masses from two separate Northern latitudinal sources.
Fascinating for a weather map spotter like me. (i ain’t a train or plane spotter though)
https://www.weathercharts.org/ukmomslp.htm#top
The chart I am referencing was at 0600 Friday the fourteemph. Today.
The wind currently over Iceland will be close to frightening . And you were saying a week ago you had experienced a mild winter. I won’t laugh because this storm could become a killer.
Matt
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Andy Rowlands
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Hi Matt, I’m not at all familiar with weather maps, so I will bow to your experience in this area. 963 millibars does sound rather a deep depression and I have seen the forecast for the weekend. We are lucky in the UK to have the benefit of the gulf stream, or at our latitude we’d have the same climate as much of Canada.
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Matt
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HI Andy.
This to sign off on this posting.
The center of the depression was 936 millibars.. Me trying to predict outcomes from that weather system was the equivalent of an enthusiastic mad dog chasing cars.
Even the Met office people with their predictive computerized weather models have to change or evolve their predictions on a daily basis.
The referenced storm with a low central pressure and two nearby low pressure systems is called a “complex depression” for a reason and three low pressure systems is like a threesome ballroom dancing where any outcome is possible.
Jerry’s input is vastly more knowledgeable than anything I presume to know but last years Easter British and Norway temperature anomaly and the one this article of yours was based around was simply caused by a stable, slow moving, wide current, long distance surface air
stream moving a vast mass of warm surface air to a normally colder area.
Thank you for the clarity of your writing. Regards Matt
Blame it on the boogie. I just cant. I just cant………………
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