Antarctic temperatures between ice ages '6C warmer than today'

[Richard111]

This is unbelievable! They discus this as a guide to how high sea levels will rise due to current global warming. No mention of what caused the past global warming or who paid the taxes to cure it.

Antarctic temperatures between ice ages '6C warmer than today'

Quote:Temperatures in Antarctica during warm periods between ice ages soared to up to 6C warmer than the present day, a study has shown.

Published: 8:00AM GMT 20 Nov 2009

The findings could help us understand more about rapid climate changes, scientists said.

Until now temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages - known as interglacials - were thought to be only slightly warmer than those of the present day, British Antarctic Survey (BAS) scientists explained.

But the findings, published this week in journal Nature, show brief spikes in temperature, which recur roughly every 100,000 years and last a few thousand years, seem to have been a lot warmer.

The new findings could help scientists predict how any melting of ice in the future could affect sea levels.

Ice core scientist Eric Wolff, of BAS, is a world-leading expert on past climate. He said: ''During the last warm period, about 125 000 years ago, sea level was around five metres higher than today.

''If we can pin down how much warmer temperatures were in Antarctica and Greenland at this time, then we can test predictions of how melting of the large ice sheets will contribute to sea level rise.''

Ice cores from east Antarctica contain the oldest drilled ice on Earth, and provide a unique record of past climate, the study said.

Louise Sime from BAS, lead author of the report, said: ''We analysed Antarctic ice cores to look at climate during past warm periods and were surprised to find relatively high Antarctic temperatures during some spikes.

''We don't yet know what caused these peaks, but we would like to be sure we haven't missed anything important about how Antarctica is set to change in a warming world.''

Analysis of the ice cores has revolutionised our understanding of how Antarctic climate has varied in the past, the study added.

Julia Tindall, an author of the paper from the University of Bristol, added: ''It is quite difficult to reconstruct temperatures from long ago. Although it is generally accepted that the climate was warmer 125,000 years ago, our results suggests it was much warmer than previously thought. It will be interesting to see if other studies agree with our findings.''

[HarpoSpoke]

Quote:Temperatures in Antarctica during warm periods between ice ages soared to up to 6C warmer than the present day, a study has shown.

Published: 8:00AM GMT 20 Nov 2009

The findings could help us understand more about rapid climate changes, scientists said.

Until now temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages - known as interglacials - were thought to be only slightly warmer than those of the present day, British Antarctic Survey (BAS) scientists explained.

But the findings, published this week in journal Nature, show brief spikes in temperature, which recur roughly every 100,000 years and last a few thousand years, seem to have been a lot warmer.

The new findings could help scientists predict how any melting of ice in the future could affect sea levels.

Ice core scientist Eric Wolff, of BAS, is a world-leading expert on past climate. He said: ''During the last warm period, about 125 000 years ago, sea level was around five metres higher than today.

''If we can pin down how much warmer temperatures were in Antarctica and Greenland at this time, then we can test predictions of how melting of the large ice sheets will contribute to sea level rise.''

Ice cores from east Antarctica contain the oldest drilled ice on Earth, and provide a unique record of past climate, the study said.

Louise Sime from BAS, lead author of the report, said: ''We analysed Antarctic ice cores to look at climate during past warm periods and were surprised to find relatively high Antarctic temperatures during some spikes.

''We don't yet know what caused these peaks, but we would like to be sure we haven't missed anything important about how Antarctica is set to change in a warming world.''

Analysis of the ice cores has revolutionised our understanding of how Antarctic climate has varied in the past, the study added.

Julia Tindall, an author of the paper from the University of Bristol, added: ''It is quite difficult to reconstruct temperatures from long ago. Although it is generally accepted that the climate was warmer 125,000 years ago, our results suggests it was much warmer than previously thought. It will be interesting to see if other studies agree with our findings.''

I don't mind this article...because they openly admit they believe recent past climate was warmer than today....all without a SUV in sight.

And it should also be noted that there was no "mass extinction" 125,000 years ago.

[Richard111]

I have been watching this site for some months. They have recently added running daily temperature traces for above and below the ice.

Dome A Australian Antarctic Division

The thought occured to me that since there is no sun at the moment any rise in temperature must be due to incoming air which then cools.

Scroll down to the graph. Look at temps for May 15 through May 17.
I was wondering what the hell was happening on May 16.

[Mike Davis]

Richard111:
I find the below ice temperatures more interesting due to natural daily variations and I would probably not feel comfortable sitting beside the pool at -56c.
I do not know the exact computations for each temperature at depth but understand that different depths are averages over a period of time with 10 meter being a longer term average. With that. This appears to indicate the 1 meter temperature average is about the same as the 10 meter and the 3 meter being warmer would mean the temperature is returning to the same as the 10 meter average.
I know that here on solid ground the temperature 18 inches/ half a meter is equal to the average temperature for the year, or there abouts. Your having also lived in the desert probably also realize this.
As the depth of the ice/snow changes and we do not know if the probes are at a constant position or repositioned for each measurement as that would also affect the results. It is interesting none the less!

As for the first part: This interglacial reached it peak warmth between 6 and 8 thousand years ago and did not reach the warmth of prior interglacials. However there is also evidence that the extent of frozen H2O has been increasing since the start of this Ice Age 3.5 million years ago and the globe has been slowly cooling for 38+ million years. That would mean each interglacial would not attain the same sea levels.

Of course that is sort of a moot point because of tectonic activity and such. Claims of sea level rise based on records of less than 1 thousand years are unreliable and guesses. Historic records show dramatic changes in regional sea levels due to regional cyclic patterns.
They had to include the sea level thingy because that is the reason for the BAS being where it is.

[Sunsettommy]

(05-18-2010 12:12 AM)Richard111 Wrote:  I have been watching this site for some months. They have recently added running daily temperature traces for above and below the ice.

Dome A Australian Antarctic Division

The thought occured to me that since there is no sun at the moment any rise in temperature must be due to incoming air which then cools.

Scroll down to the graph. Look at temps for May 15 through May 17.
I was wondering what the hell was happening on May 16.

I have been watching for several years on both polar regions via the Weatherunderground website,there they commonly have big temperature swings show up.

[Richard111]

"...they commonly have big temperature swings show up."

Curious. 1 degree an hour temperature changes!!! No insolation. Must be air movement.
Wind or descending air that has lost temperature to space. Either way that must be a a LOT of atmospheric cooling going on down there in the Antarctic. This is NOT radiative cooling as in the tropics. I wonder how that is factored into the GCMs.

[Sunsettommy]

The Arctic regions have incoming airflows from the North Atlantic and from the west side as well.

Antarctica main ice mass is high altitude,thus sensitive to incoming warmer air flows from the coastal areas.

[Richard111]

Heard a report on BBC Radio4 this morning, From our own correspondent, where a claim is made that a ridge of land under the West Antarctic ice sheet has broken and WATER IS FLOWING UNDER THE ICE! This sounds serious but I cannot find any other reference to back it up.

Listen to the BBC report, it is in the last ten minutes of the 30 minute program.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01...0_04_2011/