State of the Antartic climate system Excerpts from SASOCS (Mayewski et al. 2009)

two recently released reports document the past, present and future predictions for climate over the antarctic and the southern ocean. from these syntheses it is clear that the antarctic plays a critical role in hemispheric to regional climate change and that in recent times human activities are beginning to have a marked impact on antarctic temperature, precipitation, atmospheric circulation, ocean circulation, sea ice extent and chemistry of the atmosphere.