[HN Gopher] Low Antarctic continental climate sensitivity due to...
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       Low Antarctic continental climate sensitivity due to high ice sheet
       orography
        
       Author : bilsbie
       Score  : 51 points
       Date   : 2023-01-29 14:02 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
        
       | xwdv wrote:
       | I guess the term "global warming" is inaccurate. More like,
       | equatorial warming.
        
         | EdwardDiego wrote:
         | Well, the atmosphere is retaining more energy, but you've
         | perfectly encapsulated why the terminology moved to climate
         | change.
        
         | ajross wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | tony_cannistra wrote:
           | > 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.
        
         | tgv wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | zackees wrote:
           | [dead]
        
           | BlueTemplar wrote:
           | CO2-sinners, repent !
        
           | lowken wrote:
           | It's called climate change because it's a marketing term and
           | not a scientific one.
        
             | EdwardDiego wrote:
             | You don't think that more energy being retained in our
             | atmosphere will cause changes in climate?
        
         | tomrod wrote:
         | I know folks don't like to talk about increases in variance,
         | but why not increase in mean and more variance?
        
           | bannedbybros wrote:
           | [dead]
        
         | jfengel wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | someweirdperson wrote:
           | 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?
        
       | trebligdivad wrote:
       | nice word; 'Orography is the study of the topographic relief of
       | mountains' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orography
        
       | gmuslera wrote:
       | 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...).
        
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       (page generated 2023-01-29 23:01 UTC)