January 18, 2022 — The ocean is now warmer than it’s ever been in recent history, according to a new study. And this isn’t the first time such a record has been set. For the past six years, ocean temperatures have exceeded each previous year in a trend one scientist calls “inexorable.”
Human-induced climate change is to blame, says John Abraham, co-author of the new study published Jan. 11 in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.
“We should be very concerned,” Abraham, a professor of thermal sciences at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, U.S, told Mongabay in a video interview. “But frankly, we should have been concerned years ago.”
The research team used a network of high-tech autonomous ocean buoys to measure global ocean temperatures, which they compared to data from the 1950s. They found that in 2021, the upper 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) in all of the oceans absorbed 14 zettajoules more of human-made energy than the previous year, equal to about 145 times the world’s electricity generation in 2020.
Abraham puts it another way: “It’s the equivalent of seven Hiroshima atomic bombs detonated every second of every day of every week of every month.
“The story we’ve been telling since 2018 is that every year it’s getting hotter and hotter,” he added. “And records are being broken as this inexorable, unrelenting rise of ocean temperatures occurs.”
Read the full story at Mongabay