Climate Models Not in Line with Antarctic Change
13.05.2008 - Other
Scientists have found that existing computer models predicting climate change in Antarctica showed temperatures varying between 2.5 and 5 times the actual recorded temperatures. This new insight reveals that climate modelling is not fully integrating the particular climate factors present in Antarctica.
Observations collected since the last International Geophysical Year and data retrieved from short ice cores were compared with an average of five major climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What comes out of this analysis is that the models show a warming of the continent at the global rate. The models simulated Antarctic temperatures over the 20th century to rise 0.75°C, whereas observed Antarctic temperatures actually increased 0.2°C.
This goes to show that current computer models of global warming do not work so well when it comes to the remote Antarctic region. Antarctic climate has not warmed like the rest of the globe, mostly due to the strengthening of the winds around the continent, a cause of the Antarctic ozone hole in the stratosphere, greenhouse gas increases and internal climate variability across the continent. Scientists think they may know why an error occurred in forecasting calculations: water vapour in the atmosphere over the ice.
"The current generation of climate models has improved over previous generations, but still leaves Antarctic surface temperature projections for the 21st century with a high degree of uncertainty," says scientist Andrew Monaghan, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
