Antarctica stealing Australian rain. (Prof Matthew England, ANU, UNSW, Nature, struggle to get “cause and effect”)

A miracle has occurred, climate models which have been plagued with failure and have finally been gifted with The Scientific Truth. Apparently the God of Weather has visited upon Matthew England and others. (We wonder why God didn’t visit earlier, but are grateful for this insight.)

The climate models didn’t predict Antarctic sea ice extent trends. Polar amplification was supposed to mean it would warm twice as fast at the poles, yet inconveniently after years of massive output of CO2 — above the levels assumed in the models — Antarctic sea ice has hit another record high. Finally in the eighth round of making excuses for their excuses, the Scientific Truth has emerged to sweep away the scientific untruths that went before. (After all, climate models couldn’t possibly have been expected to understand heat flow around the planet could they?)

Ocean winds keep Antarctica cold, Australia dry Source: Australian National University New research has explained why Antarctica is not warming as much as other continents, and why southern Australia is recording more droughts. Researchers have found rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are strengthening the stormy Southern Ocean winds which deliver rain to southern Australia, but pushing them further south towards Antarctica.

CO2 is trapping heat all over the planet, but because some of that warming air is also trapped over Antarctica it’s, er, … staying cold. (And if you understand how that works please explain it to me, it sounds like Antarctica has become a reverse cycle air conditioner. Does anyone know what happens to those extra infrared photons in the thieving Antarctic circle?).

“With greenhouse warming, Antarctica is actually stealing more of Australia’s rainfall. It’s not good news — as greenhouse gases continue to rise we’ll get fewer storms chased up into Australia,” Dr Abram said. “As the westerly winds are getting tighter they’re actually trapping more of the cold air over Antarctica,” Abram said. “This is why Antarctica has bucked the trend. Every other continent is warming, and the Arctic is warming fastest of anywhere on earth.”

This part contains empirical evidence (bravo):

By analysing ice cores from Antarctica, along with data from tree rings and lakes in South America, Dr Abram and her colleagues were able to extend the history of the westerly winds back over the last millennium. “The Southern Ocean winds are now stronger than at any other time in the past 1,000 years,” Abram said.

This part is where God helped:

“The strengthening of these winds has been particularly prominent over the past 70 years, and by combining our observations with climate models we can clearly link this to rising greenhouse gas levels.” Study co-authors Dr Robert Mulvaney and Professor Matthew England said the study answered key questions about climate change in Antarctica.

The miracle of Cause and Effect

Southern Ocean winds are now stronger than at any other time in the past 1,000 years. But any form of warming might also cause this to happen. How do we know that high winds in the modern era are due to CO2 and not, say, to natural causes like, ocean current changes, trends in cloud cover, or even the recent grand solar maximum? (Coincidentally, the late 20th Century solar maximum was highest in the last 1,200 years too, see Usiokin, and possibly highest in last 11,500 years, see Vieira 2013.)

We know that natural factors could not have created the faster winds, because The God of Weather hath spoken to Prof Matthew England, Nerilie Abram, Robert Mulvaney and gifted them with the correct assumptions and estimates to finally create Climate Simulations which produce real empirical evidence instead of just calculations.

While no computer simulation has worked before. We are blessed that finally they have got it RightTM.

Soon, for the first time, Climate Model predictions will match the instruments. I can’t wait.

How incredibly fortunate for us that though Climate Modelers have been using the wrong assumptions and estimates for the last 30 years they have been adding up mistakes around the globe and somehow accidentally getting the final conclusions correct all along! Surely God is bountiful and generous, otherwise we might have wasted billions trying to reduce CO2 when it was unnecessary.

[Welcome to The Magical World of Science in 2014. I just can't take any of them seriously any more - Jo.]

REFERENCES

Nerilie J. Abram, Robert Mulvaney, Françoise Vimeux, Steven J. Phipps, John Turner, Matthew H. England. (2014) Evolution of the Southern Annular Mode during the past millennium. Nature Climate Change; DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2235

Ilya G. Usoskin (2008) A History of Solar Activity over Millennia, Living Rev. Solar Phys., 5, (2008), 3 [PDF]

L. E. A. Vieira, S. K. Solanki, N. A. Krivova and I. Usoskin4 (2011) Evolution of the solar irradiance during the Holocene Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscript no. TSIversion08



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