One of the things that intrigues me about weather and climate is no matter how much we learn about it, nature keeps throwing spanners in the works to remind us how much we don’t really know. Global warming is a prime example - as more evidence for warming piles up, more contradictions keep surfacing.

A story in Science Daily the other day reported a familiar sounding scenario: a warming trend over the last few decades in the Antarctic Peninsula has diminished sea ice, and forced penguin populations to migrate south. It says “all the global climate models predict a warming in the Antarctic and a decrease in sea ice along its margins”, and a reduction in sea ice appears to be fulfilling the predictions.

Something you’re less likely to hear about on the evening news is this story from NASA Observatory News. It states that between 1982 and 2004, Antarctica grew warmer around the edges (which includes the peninsula) but became colder over its massive interior. Another story from CO2 Science reveals that 72% of the grounded ice sheet is growing at a rate of 5mm per year. It concludes with:

“Contrary to all the horror stories one hears about global warming-induced mass wastage of the Antarctic ice sheet leading to rising sea levels that gobble up coastal lowlands worldwide, the most recent decade of pertinent real-world data suggest that forces leading to just the opposite effect are apparently prevailing.”

So, Antarctica is experiencing both warming and cooling. We humans are a clever bunch, but the complexities and contradictions of the world we live in remind us that we are not in charge, and that even understanding what’s going on around us is a challenge.