How Can The Globe Be Warming When Most Of The Southern Hemisphere Isn’t?

New research continues to document non-warming and even “robust cooling” trends for entire regions of the Southern Hemisphere in recent decades.

Land surface temperature data compilations from the Southern Hemisphere (South America, Southwestern Andes, Tasmania, New Zealand, Australia) indicate that any warming during the 20th century occurred before 1980, with no obvious net warming since (Rezsöhazy et al., 2022).

Image Source: Rezsöhazy et al., 2022

Sea surface temperature data from the Southeastern Indian Ocean, Tasman Sea, and Great Barrier Reef region indicate no net warming since 1982 (Chapman et al., 2022).

Image Source: Chapman et al., 2022

Another new study (Xu et al., 2022) suggests the Southern Ocean (50°S–70°S) has been cooling for the last 40 years, with amplitudes ranging from -0.1°C to -0.3°C per decade in some regions.

“SST in the Southern Ocean is considered as an important indicator of climate change. This study shows that the Southern Ocean (50°S–70°S) sea surface temperature has a significant and robust cooling trend during 1982–2020”

Image Source: Xu et al., 2022

A 2021 study reported a profound cooling trend for most of Antarctica in recent decades, with amplitudes of -2.8°C for East Antarctica and -1.68°C for West Antarctica during 1979-2018.

Temperature trends in the tropics (25°N to 25°S) have been mostly flat since 1979 (Madonna et al., 2022).

Image Source: Madonna et al., 2022

About 80% of the Southern Hemisphere’s surface is water. Sea surface temperature trends for the entire Southern Hemisphere suggest no net warming from 1900-2018 (Allan and Allan, 2019).

Image Source: Allan and Allan, 2019

If most of the Southern Hemisphere has not been warming, why is it called global warming?

9 responses to “How Can The Globe Be Warming When Most Of The Southern Hemisphere Isn’t?”

  1. Petit_Barde

    It’s not “global” but Gorbal warming.

  2. How Can the Globe Be Warming When Most of the Southern Hemisphere Isn’t? - Climate- Science.press

    […] How Can The Globe Be Warming When Most Of The Southern Hemisphere Isn’t? […]

  3. Gerry

    Because only the Northern Hemisphere “really really” matters. Us poor cretins living in the Southern Hemisphere are outliers, at best members of brave exploration teams deployed into the far reaches of the earth’s known surface area.

    1. John Hultquist
  4. RoHa

    The Northern Hemisphere is so hot that the seas are boiling. Soon that heat will make its way down here to the Southern Hemisphere, and then we’ll be doomed.

  5. Richard Greene

    “If most of the Southern Hemisphere has not been warming, why is it called global warming?”

    You answered your own question by using the word “most”

  6. Science and Politics News Roundup 2022 September | wryheat

    […] that any warming during the 20th century occurred before 1980, with no obvious net warming since. (Read more) […]

  7. ArndB

    It becomes unacceptable and dangerous when the warming is attributed without restrictions to the ‘greenhouse gases’, whereby an assignment to man-made climate change is to be made, as expressed by the BBC, for example:
    “Global warming: The steady rise in global average temperature in recent decades, which experts believe is largely caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions.”
    This irresponsibly chokes off potential other causes of atmospheric and ocean warming, easily leads to asking the wrong question.
    https://oceansgovernclimate.medium.com/is-it-dangerous-to-talk-about-global-warming-46f9e9589318
    with the IMAGE: the global temperature anomalies from — September 16, 2022 indicate a very marked difference in air and sea temperatures between the northern and southern hemispheres.

  8. Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #521 - Energy News Beat

    […] How Can The Globe Be Warming When Most Of The Southern Hemisphere Isn’t? […]

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