The Role of Antarctica in Understanding the Earth

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The Role of Antarctica in Understanding the
Earths Atmosphere and Climate
Richard Brandt University of Washington and Paul
Smiths College
National Science Foundation Office of Polar
Programs
Italian National Research Program in Antarctica
Institut Polaire Français
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James Elkens NOAA-CMDL 2001
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http//books.nap.edu/catalog/10139.html
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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
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• Determining Earths past climate
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• 1. Human record (only2000 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)

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EPICA Community paper, Nature, 2004
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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.
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T.P. Barnett, D.W. Pierce, R. Schnur, Science
292, 270 (2001)
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Why is predicting our future climate so difficult?
  1. Feedbacks two positive examples   CO2 Þ
insulation Þ SST Þ evaporation ÞH2O Þ
insulation Þ SST CO2 Þ insulation Þ SST Þ
sea ice extent Þalbedo Þ absorbed sunlight Þ
SST
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Why is predicting our future climate so difficult?
2. Feedbacks two negative examples   CO2 Þ
insulation Þ SST Þ evaporation ÞH2O Þ clouds
Þ SST CO2 Þ insulation Þ SST Þ
phytoplankton ÞDMS Þ Cloud condensation
nucleii Þ clouds Þ SST
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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.