Science – Significant Warming of the Antarctic Winter Troposphere

Posted by William M. Connolley on March 31, 2006
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Its not often I get a paper into Science (although admittedly I’m last author) so I’ll mention it here: Significant Warming of the Antarctic
Winter Troposphere J. Turner, T. A. Lachlan-Cope, S. Colwell, G. J. Marshall, W. M. Connolley, 31 march 2006, v311. The paper is mostly observational, I did a little bit of looking at the GCMs, with inconclusive results.

So there it is. Don’t over-interpret it. Oh, and see-also the BBC take.

[Update: this is now up on RC in slightly expanded form; so you can choose where to comment!

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  1. #1 Dave Munger
    2006/03/31

    Hey, cool, and congratulations!

    [Thanks (to all) for the congrats. Am I hot or cool? Its hard to know... :-) -W]

  2. #2 Roman Werpachowski
    2006/03/31

    “Cool” is not the right word here ;-) Dude, you’re hot!

  3. #3 Jon
    2006/03/31

    “The lack of a clear change to the atmospheric circulation suggests in situ effects, such as changes in cloud amount or particle size, and increases in the greenhouse gas concentration may well be playing a part. The temperature changes observed in the radiosonde data of a warming troposphere and cooling stratosphere are what would be expected as a result of increasing greenhouse gases.”

    So would you say that just because you cannot see it with the naked eye (or thru a telescope), does not mean it is not there, and just because you cannot feel it lower down, yet, does not mean it is not happening higher up. And more to the point what would you say chemists should be working on to reduce the accumulation (cumulus) of greenhouse gas.

  4. #4 Mark Paris
    2006/03/31

    I heard a report on NPR this morning about this paper (or at least I assume it was this paper). So apparently some people don’t like your results. They say the satellite data do not indicate the same warming. Have you heard anything about comments yet?

  5. #5 Dano
    2006/03/31

    Congrats, Wm.

    toot-toot!

    D

  6. #6 Q
    2006/03/31

    satellite imagery does not show (cannot perceive) the haze we perceive with the naked eye from earth – satellite data needs to be measuring the same data to be comparable.

    Relativity: even when you are travelling at 30,000 feet looking down at the clouds and ‘earth’ or ‘terra’ below, you don’t need to look up at the Sun, to look UP. It still rises in the horizon, and even simple video cameras reveal some very strange (light) phenomena between the viewer and the Sun in the stratosphere, between the trotopause & troposphere, and the stratopause & mesosphere.

    But I have no comparable earlier data, I was busy videoing more blatant pollution on the ground, in rivers & the soil

  7. #7 coby
    2006/03/31

    You in Science? And to think I almost paid for that rag…

    (haha ;)

    [I nearly did, too. Only $99/y - W]

  8. #8 Q
    2006/04/01

    Prof Bob Carter writes in The Independent – Global Warming Debate – April fools Day 2006

    “Carbon dioxide is a natural trace component of the atmosphere, the presence of which carries many benefits. The 2 most important being that carbon dioxide encourages prolific plant growth, and probably causes mild warming.
    … Such rates fall comfortably within the multi-decadal warming and cooling rates of up to 3 degrees/century that occur commonly in the recent geological past.”

    Dear Prof Bob Carter, I’d like to invite you and our string theorist doubter (sceptic) friend Ludos to an experiment:

    Step into my Greenhouse, take a book, laptop or ipod with you. Now we’ll turn on the combustion engine and pipe in the CO2, don’t worry I can spare the tomato plants. Let us see how much CO2 they can absorb and turn into Oxigen, before you start gasping for air (oxigen).

    A little later we’ll turn the combustion engine off, have a look at the withered plants, drag you + Ludos out, and measure the temperature in the green house. I’m not sure whether that will have proved anything to your sceptic minds, but it may teach you a simple lesson in Physics, Chemistry, Sustainable Life & Global Warming.