The journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences published a study that shows that the Earth broke another heat record last year. Scientists from around the world analyzed thousands of temperature measurements taken in the world's oceans. The Earth is warming, humans are the culprit, and the warming will continue indefinitely until we collectively take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The oceans absorb most of the heat associated with global warming. The majority of global warming heat ends up in the oceans. I like to say that global warming is ocean warming. The answer to how fast climate change is happening is in the oceans.
This paper was more than just an academic exercise. It has consequences for society and the environment. Sea life and food chains are at risk as oceans warm. storms are more severe when the ocean waters are warmer. Sea levels rise due to the expansion of water as it warms, which is one of the main causes of rising sea levels.
The world's oceans were warmer in the year 2021, compared to the previous year. Our data shows that the oceans heated up by about 14 Zettajoules. This is a mind-bending number, so it may help to use analogies. This is the amount of time a single person spends on toast every day of the year. The oceans have absorbed heat equivalent to seven Hiroshima atomic bombs detonating each second, 24 hours a day,365 days a year. I have plotted the ocean heat since the late 1950s and it is clear that the Earth is out of balance.
We took the Earth's temperature, and it's getting worse.
The oceans are vast, and you need a lot of measurements spread out across the planet to get a good sense of what is happening to the oceans as a whole. The study used hi-tech temperature sensors on autonomously floating buoy that rise and fall in the ocean waters. The data from the sensors is sent to laboratories around the world. We used temperature sensors from ships, stationary buoys, and even strapped sensors to animals so we could measure the water's temperature. Thousands of in-field researchers who are obtaining and processing the raw data enabled our research. Without their contribution, studies like this wouldn't be possible.
The temperatures are not rising uniformly across the planet. The Atlantic, Indian and northern Pacific oceans are warming the fastest. The question of why this pattern is emerging the way it is is explored in our work. Climate model simulations tie various features of the ocean to human emissions of industrial pollution and greenhouse gases. The pattern is likely to continue into the coming decades, according to the findings.
The information we used was crucial for understanding the planet. We took the Earth's temperature and it is getting worse.
I asked my colleague about the implications of the findings. Ocean warming is penetrating deeper layers of the ocean. The ocean heat content can't be assessed without real measurements. We need to continue our field missions.
My new year's resolution is to help the planet cool down. It is getting hot here and there is no sign that things will change soon. We have the technology to reduce greenhouse gases, but we have never shown will.
John Abraham is a professor at the University of St Thomas.
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