"Stanley Kellett" wrote in
message ...

Antartic sea ice breaking up see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/314511.stm

.... On this topic (and others linked to Antarctica), the new 'Weather'
magazine has a useful article (van den Broeke, van Lipzig, Marshall),
which point up the problems in using records from this region in the
greater debate. They make this comment on the 'standard' meteorological
record: " ... biased ... near the coast, the relative brevity of the
records and the strong dependence on near-surface temperature on wind
speed and cloudiness have until now hampered the detection of a robust
climate change signal in Antarctica." They point out that whilst a
warming trend (over that irregular record) can be determined in some
parts of the region, cooling can be detected elsewhere. There is a
suggestion that climate variation could possible be due to changes in
the Antarctic Oscillation, which in turn may or may not be directly
linked with observed global warming forced due to increased 'Greenhouse'
gases.

As regards ice-shelf break-up, we (mankind) have only been observing the
region in a consistent manner since the mid 1950's, and it is only with
the advent of high-resolution earth-orbiter satellites that a continuous
coverage of ice extent, height etc., has been possible. What happened in
earlier centuries?

snip

Just some food for thought Stan


.... and very tasty it is too - thanks Stan! I believe we are skewing the
ocean-atmosphere system in a significant way, but I wonder sometimes
what the proportion of *our* effect is relative to other (non-human
forced) effects is. And indeed, whether there is a surprise for us just
around the historical corner .....

Martin.