New climate history adds to understanding of recent Antarctic Peninsula warming

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/press_releases/press_release.php?id=1892

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Press Release - New climate history adds to understanding of recent Antarctic Peninsula warming[/font]

Issue date: 22 Aug 2012
Number: 09/2012

[font size=3]Results published this week by a team of polar scientists from Britain, Australia and France adds a new dimension to our understanding of Antarctic Peninsula climate change and the likely causes of the break-up of its ice shelves.

The first comprehensive reconstruction of a 15,000 year climate history from an ice core collected from James Ross Island in the Antarctic Peninsula region is reported this week in the journal Nature. The scientists reveal that the rapid warming of this region over the last 100 years has been unprecedented and came on top of a slower natural climate warming that began around 600 years ago. These centuries of continual warming meant that by the time the unusual recent warming began, the Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves were already poised for the dramatic break-ups observed from the 1990’s onwards.

The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming places on Earth – average temperatures from meteorological stations near James Ross Island have risen by nearly 2°C in the past 50 years.

…

“The centuries of ongoing warming have meant that marginal ice shelves on the northern Peninsula were poised for the succession of collapses that we have witnessed over the last two decades. And if this rapid warming that we are now seeing continues, we can expect that ice shelves further south along the Peninsula that have been stable for thousands of years will also become vulnerable.”

…[/font][/font]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11391

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/22/159786793/humans-role-in-antartic-ice-melt-is-unclear