January 21, 2009

expert comments on study in Nature showing that Antarctica is warming faster than previously thought

Dr Gareth Marshall, Climatologist, British Antarctic Survey, said:

“This work can be considered as providing the last piece of a puzzle that enables us to examine temperature change across the Antarctic continent as a whole (rather than just talk about specific regions).

“Due to the relative inaccessibility of West Antarctica, even by Antarctic standards, we do not have any long-term (~50 year) temperature records from this part of the continent. Using sophisticated statistical techniques the authors have provided a best estimate of past temperature changes in West Antarctica.

“We have satellite-derived temperatures across the continent for the past 25 years so we can study how West Antarctic temperatures co-vary with temperatures in other parts of Antarctica; then, based on these statistical relationships, the authors were able to extrapolate in space and time to use available long-term temperature datasets in other parts of the continent to derive temperatures in West Antarctica.

“This study shows that, similar to the other six continents, Antarctica has undergone a significant warming over the past 50 years.

“The magnitude of this warming is similar to the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, where we believe it is likely that human activity has played some role in the temperature increase (as stated in the last IPCC report) and therefore it is also likely that this is the case regarding an Antarctic warming.”