Oceans are Warming According to a January 2020 Report

The ocean warmth report published on 9th January 2020, says that there is a “record-setting ocean warming.” The cause is human-emitted greenhouse gases that warm the planet. This finding is consistent with the IPCC September 2019 special report (Cheng et al., 2020).

This is because the oceans absorb more than 90% of the excess heat from the atmosphere, and heat accumulation causes the oceans to warm. Just last year, 2019, the researchers found that the ocean temperature between 0-2000 meters deep is at a record high (Cheng et al., 2020).

Data from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Center for Environmental Information (NOAA/NCEI) show that the 1981-2010 average water temperature was only 25 Zetta Joules. The 2019 data registered 228 Zetta Joules (ZJ), showing a significant increase in ocean temperatures (Cheng et al., 2020).

What does it mean to us?

To contextualise what this 228 ZJ of ocean warming means, scientists compare it with the amount of energy released by the explosion of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945, which is 63,000,000,000,000 Joules of energy. Scientists say that in the past 25 years, the warming of the ocean can be compared to 3.6 billion Hiroshima atom-bomb explosions in the oceans or an average of 4 Hiroshima bombs’ worth of energy entering the ocean every second for the past 25 years (Houser, 2020).

This analogy is mind-boggling. It is sobering to think that the heating of our ocean from the GHG trapped in our atmosphere would have the same amount of energy as the continuous explosions of atomic bombs.

Scientists can now rank the warmest years since 1950 with this new ocean data. They have found out that the top 5 warmest years in history have been the last 5 years. Also, the top 10 warmest years have been the last 10 years. Scientists suggest that this trend of rising ocean temperatures is linked to climate change (Cheng et al., 2020).

Ocean warming is widely distributed throughout the world’s oceans, but the Atlantic and especially the Southern oceans have shown much higher warming, up to 35 to 43% since 1970. The excess warming in the Southern Ocean is transported northward across the equator and influences recent marine heatwaves in the Tasman Sea (Cheng et al., 2020).

The study’s evidence of ocean warming is irrefutable, and it also shows an imbalance in the Earth’s energy. Researchers in the study are discovering that excess GHG trapped in the atmosphere causes global warming. This heats up the oceans, and the remaining heat causes the land to become hotter and drier and melts the ice on land and sea. The IPCC Reports also say that human carbon emissions are causing global warming (Cheng et al., 2020).

The effects of ocean warming

Marine heatwaves caused by ocean warming threaten biodiversity, fisheries and economic losses. Researchers have discovered that major heatwaves have recently occurred in the Mediterranean, North Pacific, Equatorial Central Pacific, Tasman Sea, and North Atlantic (Cheng et al., 2020).

Other consequences of increasing ocean temperatures are rising sea levels because of thermal expansion and added mass from the ice melts.  The last ten years show the highest global mean sea level since 1900. Warming ocean waters also reduce dissolved oxygen, which can destroy sea life, particularly corals, and other sensitive organisms. Warming also increases evaporation and moisture in the atmosphere, creating heavy rains, flooding, and more extreme hydrological cycles that can be linked to catastrophic fires in the Amazon, California, and Australia (Cheng et al., 2020).

PHOTO CREDIT: Warren Arnillo