Is the Antarctic cooling paper proof that some members in the climate science community are driven by ....?

Deniers just have to see conspiracies everywhere. Here is the original RealClimate Antarctica entry. "A model constructed by Stephen Schneider and Thompson, highly simplified in modern terms but sophisticated for its time, suggested that the Southern Hemisphere would experience delays decades longer than the Northern. Schneider and Thompson warned that if people compared observations with what would be expected from a simple equilibrium model, “we may still be misled… in the decade A.D. 2000-2010.”" http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/02/antarctica-is-cold/ Translation: they did not "predict a cooling trend," as you claim (probably based on that completely unbiased ClimateAudit website), but that Antarctica (and the rest of the southern hemisphere) would not warm as rapidly as the rest of the planet. Which is quite logical when you consider the amount of water in the SH and ice in Antarctica. It takes a lot of energy to change the state of water and heat it. The new study concludes that Antarctica has warmed, though not as much or as rapidly as the rest of the planet. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/state-of-antarctica-red-or-blue/ Thus it does not contradict the earlier entry, which was titled "Antarctica is *cold*..." not "Antarctica is *cooling*". It really bugs me that whenever climate scientists learn and/or try to explain something new, deniers assume there's some sort of devious cover-up going on. This is how science works. We learn new things and improve theories. Even if the models were wrong 30 years ago (which again, they weren't), how does improving them mean scientists have "an agenda"? Can't we discuss the science in a civil manner without assuming everything is some sort of conspiracy? This is why sites like ICECAP, ClimateAudit, and Wattsupwiththat are not worth relying on. They assume AGW is a conspiracy and react to the science accordingly. *edit* and then you've got comments like Jello's "The Antarctic ice mass has gained mass every year its been measured. There's never been any loss of Antarctic ice." Then he links this graph, which shows a loss of Antarctic ice almost 50% of the time. I was going to list all the years with a decrease in Antarctic sea ice extent from the previous year, but there are so many it's not even worth the effort. Not even to mention the fact that extent does not equal mass. http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/s_plot.png After making an obviously false claim and then linking the graph which disproves it, he concludes "Any other comment is an attempt to defraud." Someone is certainly making an attempt to defraud. But not a very good one.

No. What agenda do you think that they might have, besides making observations and reporting their findings? A. This new study still concludes that the parts of Antarctica (East Antarctica) have cooled during the past few decades (1980's and 1990's). B. Also, the study does not contradict the widely-accepted interpretation that recent East Antarctic cooling is related to an increasing strength of the circumpolar westerlies, and that this increased strength can be traced to ozone losses in the stratosphere.

these people who are lying about the climate, and who are trying to control the population by making up this global warming hoax need to be put to death for what they are doing. IT's no longer funny or just an annoyance. These people are trying to kill off the world's population and are so far succeeding in brainwashing most people like lemmings to follow the pied piper to their death and destruction.

These people massage an alter the data to get the result that they want. Proponents of AGW will always find a way to take data, regardless of wether they point to cooling or warming, and say that the results fit their model. Here's an example: The study found that warming in West Antarctica exceeded one-tenth of a degree Celsius per decade for the last 50 years and more than offset the cooling in East Antarctica. One-tenth of a degree??? Really? I'm supposed to worry about Antarctica melting over one-tenth of a degree? How acurately can anyone actually measure one-tenth of a degree with any kind of accuracy? And I belive the authors of this study also state that they estimate the level of uncertainty in the measurements is between 2-3 degrees Celsius. They also go out of their way to discount the volcanic activity in the Western Antarctic could have any impact on measured warming. That's convenient. And if you have the time, take a look at the various periods over the last decade that just ONE weather station in the Antarctic has been offline, uncalibrated, not functioning properlt or in error: http://amrc.ssec.wisc.edu/aws/butlerismain.html They also use satellite data for surface temperature readings. Does this mean that satellite surface readings are now acceptable? Because sattelite readings showing cooling in various regions of the world have been deemed inaccurate by the AGW folks in past years. And what was the starting point for the temperature readings? I can go back to point in time and declare that the Antarctic has been cooling. It's cherry picking.

manbearpig would be very disappointed in you, thinking for yourself like that.

I think Lindzen was right when he said "The web site (real climate) serves primarily as a support group for believers in catastrophe, constantly reassuring them that there is no reason to reduce their worrying". That is the reason that they were claiming that cooling was what the models were predicting. They wanted to reassure their followers that all is well with the theory. Ken you said Those hypothesis which hold up to scrutiny and repeated analysis/experimentation survive to become accepted theories. Agreed. But don't you find it suspicious that the Steig paper was accepted without scrutiny? Dana: You miss the point. The article said yes, Antarctica is cooling, we expected that, but it will warm in the future. Steig said it never cooled in the first place and was always warming, or at least a part of it. Now real climate is supporting the article by Steig.

I love how people like Dana, want to discredited Icecap, when all Icecap does is pull stories from around the web to make it easier for people to read. http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/recent-antarctic-warming-attribution.html (Tons of links within this blog post.) I just wanted to add this little tidbit: http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090125/NATIONAL/688880349/1010/enewsletter

The attempt to re-write history is quite sad whether its pretending that there was a scientific consensus on cooling in the 70s. Or this effort which again ignores facts. The affects on Antarctica are not a sudden change of mind Eric c's own source is 5 years old and is citing papers at least 5 years older, this is not a new or sudden change of mind. This doesn't mean that Antarctica will remain insulated for long, and as for Antarctica cooling, The main long term temperature records for Antarctica are for the various stations and bases. The coldest temperature ever recorded was at Vostok station in 1983 this record remains unbroken. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldest_temperature_recorded_on_Earth The ocean current you pass off as an 'explanation' is a physical fact the circumpolar current http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Circumpolar_Current It does indeed circle the continent not stopped by any land mass making the Southern Ocean the roughest waters in the world. It is one reason Antarctica remained unexplored till the 20th century.

The agenda is science and it is not perfect. The last ice age was apparently set off by CO and greenhouse gases. The levels involved previous to the ice age were quite high. The release from volcanic activity is associated with these levels. If all the theories were lined up they would still point in all directions.