Scientists are struggling to keep their stories straight regarding the anthropogenic [human-caused] CO2 impact on polar climates.
It is claimed that anthropogenic CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels are responsible for amplifying warming (“polar amplification“) and ice melt in polar climates, consistent with pronouncements pertaining to anthropogenic global warming. [bold, links added]
However, Antarctica’s Larsen Ice Shelf station indicates a massive cooling trend, -1.1°C per decade, has been ongoing since the late 1990s (Bozkurt et al., 2020).
About 85% of the East Antarctic Peninsula ice sheet has sustained “uninterrupted advance” since 2003 (Christie et al., 2022).
East and West Antarctica have been significantly cooling since 1979. Overall cooling rates of -0.7°C and -0.42°C per decade from 1979 to 2018 indicate -2.8°C and -1.68°C total cooling, respectively, for the mainland continent during these decades (Zhu et al., 2021).
The Antarctic Peninsula only began significant cooling in the 1990s (Oliva et al., 2017), and thus the 21st-century cooling has not yet overtaken or reversed the overall trend since 1979.
Other scientists suggest rising CO2 leads to cooling, not warming, in Antarctica. The CO2 greenhouse effect forcing is also “comparatively weak”, or close to 0 W/m², for Greenland (Schmithüsen et al., 2015).
None of these trends or attributions are consistent with claims of anthropogenic global warming or polar amplification as a consequence of rising CO2 emissions.
Read more at No Tricks Zone
