Researchers may have explained why Antarctica is not warming as quickly as other continents as well as why Australia is experiencing droughts.
Rising levels of carbon in Earth's atmosphere are making Southern Ocean winds stronger and pushing them further south to Antarctica. These winds usually help deliver rain to Australia, an Australian National University news release reported.
"With greenhouse warming, Antarctica is actually stealing more of Australia's rainfall. It's not good news - as greenhouse gases continue to rise we'll get fewer storms chased up into Australia," Lead researcher Nerilie Abram, from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences said in the news release.
"As the westerly winds are getting tighter they're actually trapping more of the cold air over Antarctica," Abram said. "This is why Antarctica has bucked the trend. Every other continent is warming, and the Arctic is warming fastest of anywhere on earth."
Antarctica is still extremely frigid, but researchers have spotted some warming and ice shelf collapse on the Antarctic Peninsula.
The researchers looked at ice cores and tree rings to get an idea of wind patterns over the past millennium.
"The Southern Ocean winds are now stronger than at any other time in the past 1,000 years," Abram said. "The strengthening of these winds has been particularly prominent over the past 70 years, and by combining our observations with climate models we can clearly link this to rising greenhouse gas levels."
The findings could help researchers gain insight into climate change in Antarctica.
"Strengthening of these westerly winds helps us to explain why large parts of the Antarctic continent are not yet showing evidence of climate warming," said Droctor Robert Mulvaney, from the British Antarctic Survey said in the news release.
"This new research suggests that climate models do a good job of capturing how the westerly winds respond to increasing greenhouse gases," Professor Matthew England, from the Climate Change Research Centre at UNSW said in the news release.
