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The Role of Antarctica in Understanding the Earth’s Atmosphere and Climate

Explore the significance of Antarctica in understanding Earth's atmosphere and climate, from greenhouse gases to past climate indicators and climate feedbacks. Learn about the challenges of predicting future climate and the complexities of climate modeling.

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The Role of Antarctica in Understanding the Earth’s Atmosphere and Climate

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  1. The Role of Antarctica in Understanding the Earth’s Atmosphere and Climate Richard Brandt University of Washington and Paul Smith’s College National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs Italian National Research Program in Antarctica Institut Polaire Français

  2. James Elkens NOAA-CMDL 2001

  3. http://books.nap.edu/catalog/10139.html

  4. What are the atmospheric gasses that cause the greenhouse effect? Not the major gasses: N2 78% O2 21% Ar 1% On earth (unlike venus and mars) it is the minor gasses that are responsible for the greenhouse: H2O CO2 O3 CH4 N2O

  5. Determining Earth’s past climate • 1. Human record (only~2000 years) • 2. Ice cores in Antarctica and Greenland. • (up to 475,000 years ago) • 3. Tree ring analysis, extent of pollen deposition • (up to millions of years) • 4. Ocean sediments and geochemistry • (over a half billion years)

  6. The Dome C δD record resembles Vostok and Dome F records over their common parts EPICA Community paper, Nature, 2004

  7. Jones, P.D. and Moberg, A., 2003: Hemispheric and large-scale surface air temperature variations: An extensive revision and an update to 2001. Journal of Climate, 16, 206-223.

  8. T.P. Barnett, D.W. Pierce, R. Schnur, Science292, 270 (2001)

  9. Why is predicting our future climate so difficult? 1. Feedbacks: two positive examples ­CO2Þ­insulation Þ­SST Þ­evaporation Þ­H2O Þ­insulation Þ­SST ­CO2Þ­insulation Þ­SST Þ¯ sea ice extent Þ¯albedo Þ­absorbed sunlight Þ­SST

  10. Why is predicting our future climate so difficult? 2. Feedbacks: two negative examples ­CO2Þ­insulation Þ­SST Þ­evaporation Þ­H2O Þ­clouds Þ¯SST ­CO2Þ­insulation Þ­SST Þ­phytoplankton Þ­DMS Þ­Cloud condensation nucleiiÞ­clouds Þ¯SST

  11. Why is predicting our future climate so difficult? 1. Detailing climate feedbacks properly to get the correct climate amplification (example is ice-albedo feedback) 2. Improving our understanding of albedo, temperature, water vapor, cloud cover, atmospheric dynamics of the less populated parts of earth, especially the polar regions. (Few or no weather and climate records) 3. Climate models are computationally intensive and there are complexities due to such a highly nonlinear system (for example atmospheric turbulence which is chaotic). We are limited by our computing power for regional scale modeling.

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