Writing in the journalNature, a group of scientists have documented that temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula have been falling steadily for the last 18 years at the rate of nearly one degree Fahrenheit per decade, countering earlier warming trends.
During the second half of the 20th century, the Antarctic Peninsula experienced an extended warming period igniting fears of apocalyptic catastrophes like that depicted in the 2004 Hollywood climate change disaster film, “The Day After Tomorrow.” According to the new essay, however, titled “Climate science: Cooling in the Antarctic,” scientists are now saying that the warming trend was caused by natural factors and reversed itself again by natural causes just before the turn of the millennium.
Nature’s editor noted that although the Antarctic Peninsula is “frequently presented as a case study of rapid warming,” scientists John Turner and colleagues have now shown that warming trends have abated and “for the early years of the twenty-first century the peninsula has in the main been cooling.” – READ MORE