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The first study to actually measure temperatures at the poles has revealed that mid-winter temperatures at the South Pole are about 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit colder than predicted by current climate models.

A common theme in the post-election moaning is global warming, the argument being that somehow a Republican administration is going to bring about global environmental disaster. There are plenty of factual problems with this Administration, we really don't need to make up extras.

This report received NO media attention, and it will no doubt be summarily ignored by those who want to keep whining about the US break with the flawed Kyoto Accord. But it points out the importance of making environmental policy based on facts we have, not on the emotions we feel.

Frigid South Pole atmosphere reveals flaw in global circulation models
Jim Kloeppel, Physical Sciences Editor
(217) 244-1073;kloeppel@uiuc.edu
8/28/02
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Atmospheric measurements made at Earth's geographic poles provide a convenient way of validating and calibrating global circulation models. Such measurements also might provide some of the first conclusive evidence of global change in the middle and upper atmospheres. But new data shows that the current models are wrong: Temperatures over the South Pole are much colder in winter than scientists had anticipated.
As reported in the Aug. 28 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, scientists have found that temperatures during mid-winter in the stratopause and mesopause regions at the South Pole are about 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit colder than model predictions.
The work was performed by ECE Professor Chester Gardner, Weilin Pan, a doctoral student at Illinois; and Ray Roble, a senior scientist at the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
"Our results suggest that wintertime warming due to sinking air masses is not as strong as the models have assumed," Gardner said. "But, in all fairness, since no one had made these measurements before, modelers have been forced to estimate the values. And, in this case, their estimates were wrong." [...] [University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign] via [Business Briefings]