Why don't we see the atmosphere warm at the South Pole in response to increased CO2 concentration?

[Jeff M]

What makes you think CO2 doesn't work at the south pole? Have you looked at all the other possible forcings, found them to not be able to hide the warming due to CO2, and then come to the conclusion that the south pole CO2 is not causing any warming or as much as modern physics says it will?

I think, perhaps, rainfall has not increased in the Antarctic is because it is a dessert. I would be interested in seeing the spatial distribution of increasing and decreasing precipitation over the region. It would be interesting to see if precipitation is increasing along the outer edges and decreasing in the middle of the continent. And as I've stated, the atmosphere is warming in large areas and is cooling in large areas. the amount of each is most likely attributable to regional characteristics (eg. southern wind speeds, warming and cooling ocean currents, and so on.) More than likely changes in such things as water vapour, due to other forcings, are heightening the effects of those other forcings, as they do on a global scale as well. But to think that, perhaps, the effects of CO2 is not as much as others say it will be without looking into other possible mitigating effects first isn't going about it the right way.

If we look at water vapour on a global scale we see that it is largely affected by ENSO conditions

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1...S-86-2-245
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/

Of course water vapour concentration over Antarctica is most likely controlled by other oscillatory cycles.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8239
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20090121/

Though these two point to the study by Steig et al it does states the limitations ground based stations in the Antarctic region have. Especially considering their sparseness and the regional temperature fluctuations. This page, though not peer reviewed, states pretty much what I stated above regarding seasonal and oscillatory variations.

http://www.unis.no/35_staff/staff_webpag...hanges.htm

"The observed spatial pattern of temperature variations may, however, indicate that the consecutive warming and cooling throughout the decades was part of a large-scale circulation pattern that exhibits long-term persistence. Mean winter surface temperature trends in Antarctica have previously been linked to slow (multi-year) variations in atmospheric long waves (van Loon and Williams 1977), suggesting that mid-latitude large-scale circulation plays a significant role in the spatial variability of temperature over the continent. There is some observational evidence suggesting that under present conditions cooler conditions on the Antarctic Plateau are associated with stronger zonal westerlies around the Antarctic continent, causing warmer conditions in the Peninsula regions penetrating north into the zone of enhanced westerlies. "