Is the dramatic surface warming observed in the Antarctic Peninsula also present throughout the troposphere?

Meteorological surface observations from the
Antarctic Peninsula began in the mid-1940s. The
most reliable long-term (~50 years) temperature
record from this region has been obtained from
Faraday station on the western side of the
Peninsula (Fig. 1). The annual surface
temperature trend for the 50-years from 1951-
2000 is +0 .0562 ± 0.0429°C a"', which is
significant at the 1% level. Hansen et al. (1999)
demonstrated that from 1950-98 the Peninsula
underwent the greatest warming anywhere in the
Southern Hemisphere, which was of a similar
magnitude to the largest coincident global
temperature rises, observed in regions of the
Arctic (cf. their Plate 4a) . Seasonally, the
greatest warming at Faraday has occurred
during the austral winter (JJA) - +0.1089 ±
0.0880°C ã' - and has been linked to a
decrease in winter sea-ice extent in the
Bellingshausen Sea west of the Peninsula
(Jacobs and Comiso 1997; King and Harangozo
1998), with resultant changes in the regional
marine ecosystem (Fraser et a(. 1992).
However, it is the smaller summer (DJF)
temperature increase of +0 .0244 ± 0.0168°C ã'
that is principally responsible for the widely
publicized disintegration of many ice shelves
fringing the northern Peninsula (Vaughan and
Doake 1996).