Ocean Surface Temperature Is Rising Faster Than Ever: It’s More Than Four Times Warmer Than It Was in the 1980s

The ocean temperature increases by 32.48 degrees Fahrenheit (0.27 degrees Celsius) per decade.

Ocean surface temperature has accelerated four times since 1980s
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Pablo Martínez-Juarez

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Environmental economist and science journalist. For a few years, I worked as a researcher on the economics of climate change adaptation. Now I write about that and much more. LinkedIn

2023 and 2024 were extremely warm years worldwide. Atmospheric temperatures broke records and exceeded the international community’s self-imposed limits on global warming. That’s only part of the story.

Climate acceleration. The oceans aren’t lagging in this temperature rise. According to a new study, the oceans aren’t only warming but doing so at a much faster rate than before. If the average increase in ocean surface temperature in the 1980s was 32.10 degrees Fahrenheit (0.06 degrees Celsius) per decade, the current rate is 32.48 degrees Fahrenheit (0.27 degrees Celsius) per decade. This represents a 350% increase over the past 35 years.

“If the oceans were a bathtub of water, then in the 1980s, the hot tap was running slowly, warming up the water by just a fraction of a degree each decade. But now the hot tap is running much faster, and the warming has picked up speed. The way to slow down that warming is to start closing off the hot tap, by cutting global carbon emissions and moving towards net-zero,” professor Chris Merchant, lead author at the University of Reading and National Centre for Earth Observation, said in a press release.

A question of balance. According to the study’s team, the problem stems from an energy imbalance: The solar energy captured by Earth exceeds the energy that escapes into space. As a result, the system is gradually heating up.

Several factors contribute to this energy accumulation, including greenhouse gas buildup in the atmosphere and a reduction in the amount of sunlight our planet reflects outward.

Interaction of factors. Within the system, interactions between different phenomena further influence temperature rise. Sea surface temperature, for example, affects atmospheric temperature and is at least partly responsible for the global temperature increases observed in the last two years.

El Niño, for instance, is associated with surface temperature changes in a specific strip of the Pacific Ocean but has global meteorological repercussions. Since El Niño is a periodic phenomenon, its effects can be disaggregated from other contributing factors. By comparing the last period (marked by El Niño) with the previous cycle, researchers estimated that 44% of the global temperature increase was due to accelerated heat accumulation in the ocean.

The study was published in Environmental Research Letters.

Risk on land, too. Sea surface temperature affects meteorology and extreme weather events. Hurricanes are a prime example. The ocean’s thermal energy fuels these storms, so their frequency and intensity largely depend on sea surface heat.

Experts also linked the impact of the last DANA, an extreme version of a cold drop, to climate change. In this case, the heat of the ocean surface and the adjacent air led to a greater accumulation of moisture, increasing thermal contrast and generating more severe storms.

Image | Copernicus Climate Change Service

Related | Climate Change Is No Longer Profitable: Wall Street and Big Investors Are Backing Away from Green Policies

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