Finding the climate in Antarctica is wrongly predicted

A comparison of Antarctic temperatures and snow accumulation with predictions by the computer model of the global climate has produced good news and bad news.

The good news is that the numerical model predictions over the past 50 years generally monitor the temperature and snowfall observed for the southernmost continent, although the observed results are highly variable. .

The bad news is that a similar comparison of the last 100 years does not fit well together. The projections of temperature and snowfall are 2.5 to 5 times higher than the actual temperature and snowfall during that period.

These findings suggest that the current computer model of the effects of global warming may not work well for remote southern regions.

David Bromwich and colleagues at Ohio State University say they may know why these predictions are so much different from the data collected - they think it is the fault of the atmosphere in the atmosphere. ice.

(Photo: Physorg)

They argue that long-wave radiation emitted by water vapor can heat the ice surface and increase the temperature predicted by the model .

'Steam prediction model' Professor Bromwich said, 'but we don't have anything to really measure the amount of water vapor on the south continent. For the steam on mainland Antarctica, the model must be wrong. '

In this study, scientists rely on two sets of data. A set from the observational results of snowfall and temperature obtained from Antarctica half a century ago in the International Year of Geophysics. Another set includes temperature data taken from the short ice core restored from this continent.

Information is compared to the average taken from the 5 major climate change models used by IPCC for that time period. While there are 23 global climate models, the average of these 5 models creates the best combination for this study.

The worry is that the discovery of a century-long data set shows a higher temperature of 2.5 to 5 times the actual data-based temperature. Models show that the warming of the continent is on a global level while the actual warming is much lower.

Professor Bromwich said the polar climate is not as warm as the rest of the earth, in part because of the strength of the wind around the continent. That strength is governed by the combination of the Antarctic ozone hole in the stratosphere, the increase in greenhouse gas and climate variability in the region across the continent.

'We do not know how any of these factors will develop during the next century and therefore, it is not certain how much warming will take place in Antarctica, '

'Most people believe that warming along the Antarctic Peninsula is due to human influence, but the problem is how far the warming will go south, and what effect it will have,' he said.

The answer to this problem is that if melted, the ice on top of the southern continent is enough to raise the sea level to 200 feet worldwide. 'The problem of increasing global sea level is a problem involving most people,'

This research is largely funded by the National Science Foundation, with additional support from the US Department of Energy.