New evidence shows Antarctica has warmed in last 150 years

Despite recent indications that Antarctica cooled considerably during the 1990s, new research suggests that the world's iciest continent has been getting gradually warmer for the last 150 years, a trend not identifiable in the short meteorological records and masked at the end of the 20th century by large temperature variations.

Numerous ice cores collected from five areas allowed scientists to reconstruct a temperature record that shows average Antarctic temperatures have risen about two-tenths of a degree Celsius, or about one-third of a degree Fahrenheit, in 150 years. That might not sound like much, but the overall increase includes a recorded temperature decline of nearly 1 degree in the 1990s, said David Schneider, a University of Washington postdoctoral researcher in Earth and space sciences.