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West Antarctica Warming Faster Than Thought
New submitter dgrobinson writes "NY Times reports that West Antarctica has warmed more over the last half century than was first thought. A paper released Sunday by the journal Nature Geoscience (abstract) found that the temperature at a research station in the middle of West Antarctica has warmed by 4.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1958. That is roughly twice as much as scientists previously thought and three times the overall rate of global warming, making central West Antarctica one of the fastest-warming regions on earth."
...is an interesting place. It "stick out" more than the rest of the continent and hence is surrounded by more water, and it's home to at least 6 surface volcanoes (http://icecap.us/images/uploads/AntarcticVolcanoes2.jpg).
A few years back scientists discovered at least a bunch of sub-oceanic volcanoes with at least one merrily bubbling away. They remarked on how warm the waters were and how this had caused unique "oases" of lifeforms all along the extent. (http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/press_releases/press_release.php?id=1541}
These and the unusual "surrounded by water" nature of this area are more likely contributors to localized melting.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Unlike Earth, whose temperature varies as one moves closer to or farther from the equator, Jupiter's temperature depends more on height above the surface. This is because heat is driven not by the sun but by the interior of the planet. Nice try, though!
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
It will be hard calling you six years ago.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
This is a better link, and has more info: http://phys.org/news/2012-12-rapid-west-antarctic-ice-sheet.html
We would expect to see some record lows even during warming. The important point is that there are many more record highs being hit in recent years than record lows, which is exactly what you'd expect if the climate is warming. You can't tell whether the Earth as a whole is warming or cooling based on cherry-picking data.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.