Low Antarctic continental climate sensitivity due to high ice sheet orography | Hacker News Reader

Low Antarctic continental climate sensitivity due to high ice sheet orography

nature.com

54 pointsbilsbie14 comments

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...).

nice word; 'Orography is the study of the topographic relief of mountains' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orography

I guess the term “global warming” is inaccurate. More like, equatorial warming.

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.

> 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.

Sorry, but I don't think you've interpreted the study well. You're right about the lack of interior warming - that's the premise of the study. But the study attributes this to the orographic effect of the relatively high elevation of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) - not any effect of heat buffering in the ice.

To determine this, they "flattened" (e.g. removed all influence of terrain from) the AIS, and ran global climate models over this modified terrain.

They determined that the terrain _itself_, which is the progenitor of orographic effects in the atmosphere, was responsible for the lack of interior temperature rise. Orographic effects at synoptic/continental scales can have a substantial impact on latent heat transport – they showed that here.

Perhaps thermal buffering has a place in the conversation too, but it's not mentioned in this paper.

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.

It’s called climate change because it’s a marketing term and not a scientific one.

You don't think that more energy being retained in our atmosphere will cause changes in climate?

CO2-sinners, repent !

Torments to some indeed

I know folks don't like to talk about increases in variance, but why not increase in mean and more variance?

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.

The poles are less sensitive, and you can see that at the south pole, where it is warming much slower than the equator. The noth pole doesn't exhibit that stability, which requires explanation.

Trying to explain that something is the normal behavior, and that something else is the exception requires more than a sample size of two.

To prove that the increase of poles is the norm you'll need to describe the behavor of a few more poles. Maybe west and east pole?

Well, the atmosphere is retaining more energy, but you've perfectly encapsulated why the terminology moved to climate change.

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