Ocean Temperatures Are Rising Much Faster Than Scientists Expected.
According to scientists at the University of Reading, the global mean sea surface temperature (GMSST) is rising 400 percent faster than it was in the late 1980s.
The scientists also estimate that the warming witnessed within the past 40 years will be eclipsed in less than 20 years without mitigation of greenhouse emissions.
Ah, the 1980s—a time of New Coke, teased hair, and an ocean that warmed at a respectable rate. Fast forward forty years, and classic Coke is back, teased hair is mostly a 'bed head' side effect, and worst of all, the ocean is warming at an unseemly pace—at least, that's according to a new study from scientists at the University of Reading.
It isn't exactly a surprise that the ocean is getting warmer, but the rate at which it's doing so—roughly 400 percent faster than the rate of the 1980s—is alarming. Looking at satellite observations captured from 1985 to modern day, coupled with statistical models incorporating climate variability, scientists found that the ocean was warming at a rate of roughly 0.06 degrees Celsius per decade in the late 80s. Now, it has now jumped up to 0.27 degrees Celsius per decade. The results of the study were published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
'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,' University of Reading's Chris Merchant, lead author of the study, said in a press statement. '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.'
Of course, the overall warming of the ocean—a figure known as the global mean sea surface temperature (GMSST)—is a result of the growth of 'Earth's energy imbalance,' or EEI, in the words of the authors. As concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases rise, more energy from the Sun is being absorbed than is escaping back into space—and that means warmer oceans.
By extrapolating future scenarios based on this data, the researchers also note that this growth isn't linear, and that the increase gained over the last 40 years will likely be surpassed in less than 20 years if climate emissions are not mitigated. For evidence of this, look no further than recent history—in 2023 to 2024, the ocean hit record high temperatures for 450 days straight.
Although this heat flux was caused in part by the El Niño—a climate pattern that typically brings warmer conditions to the Pacific—scientists compared this recent El Niño to the one that occurred back in 2015-2016 and discerned that 44 percent of the record warmth came from steadily increasing ocean water temperatures.
Because of this steadily increasing rate of warmth, looking to past decades as a predictor for future climate behavior likely isn't reliable, and this new data suggests that limiting emissions is more important than ever.
'Policy makers and wider society should be aware that the rate of global warming over recent decades is a poor guide to the faster change that is likely over the decades to come, underscoring the urgency of deep reductions in fossil-fuel burning,' the authors wrote.
There's no going back to the '80s—no one liked New Coke anyway—but there still are solutions for safeguarding a healthy planet for future generations.
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