Elizabeth Kolbert is the author of “The Sixth Extinction,” for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 2015.
In this essay, she writes: "A startling rise in sea-surface temperatures suggests that we may not understand how fast the climate is changing."
__________________________
In early 2023, climate scientists — and anyone else paying attention to the data — started to notice something strange. At the beginning of March, sea-surface temperatures began to rise. By April, they’d set a new record: the average temperature at the surface of the world’s oceans, excluding those at the poles, was just a shade under 70°F [21°C]. Typically, the highest sea-surface temperatures of the year are observed in March, toward the end of the Southern Hemisphere’s summer. Last year, temperatures remained abnormally high through the Southern Hemisphere’s autumn and beyond, breaking the monthly records for May, June, July, and other months. The North Atlantic was particularly bathtub-like; in the words of Copernicus, an arm of the European Union’s space service, temperatures in the basin were “off the charts.”
Since the start of 2024, sea-surface temperatures have continued to climb; in February, they set yet another record. In a warming world, ocean temperatures are expected to rise and keep on rising. But, for the last twelve months, the seas have been so feverish that scientists are starting to worry about not just the physical impacts of all that heat but the theoretical implications.
Can the past year be explained by what’s already known about climate change, or are there forces at work that haven’t been accounted for? And, if it’s the latter, does this mean that projections of warming, already decidedly grim, are underestimating the dangers?
“It’s not like we’re breaking records by a little bit now and then,” Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, said. “It’s like the whole climate just fast-forwarded by fifty or a hundred years. That’s how strange this looks.”
It’s estimated that in 2023 the heat content in the upper two thousand meters of the oceans increased by at least nine zettajoules. For comparison’s sake, the world’s annual energy consumption amounts to only about 0.6 zettajoules.
__________________________
FULL ESSAY -- https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-is-the-sea-so-hot
NO-PAYWALL LINK -- https://archive.is/fXqYL
#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency
Bread and Circuses /
npub1ej…qh8ya
2024-03-20 14:32:11
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2024-03-20 14:32:11Event JSON
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"content": "Elizabeth Kolbert is the author of “The Sixth Extinction,” for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 2015. \n\nIn this essay, she writes: \"A startling rise in sea-surface temperatures suggests that we may not understand how fast the climate is changing.\"\n__________________________\n\nIn early 2023, climate scientists — and anyone else paying attention to the data — started to notice something strange. At the beginning of March, sea-surface temperatures began to rise. By April, they’d set a new record: the average temperature at the surface of the world’s oceans, excluding those at the poles, was just a shade under 70°F [21°C]. Typically, the highest sea-surface temperatures of the year are observed in March, toward the end of the Southern Hemisphere’s summer. Last year, temperatures remained abnormally high through the Southern Hemisphere’s autumn and beyond, breaking the monthly records for May, June, July, and other months. The North Atlantic was particularly bathtub-like; in the words of Copernicus, an arm of the European Union’s space service, temperatures in the basin were “off the charts.”\n\nSince the start of 2024, sea-surface temperatures have continued to climb; in February, they set yet another record. In a warming world, ocean temperatures are expected to rise and keep on rising. But, for the last twelve months, the seas have been so feverish that scientists are starting to worry about not just the physical impacts of all that heat but the theoretical implications. \n\nCan the past year be explained by what’s already known about climate change, or are there forces at work that haven’t been accounted for? And, if it’s the latter, does this mean that projections of warming, already decidedly grim, are underestimating the dangers?\n\n“It’s not like we’re breaking records by a little bit now and then,” Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, said. “It’s like the whole climate just fast-forwarded by fifty or a hundred years. That’s how strange this looks.” \n\nIt’s estimated that in 2023 the heat content in the upper two thousand meters of the oceans increased by at least nine zettajoules. For comparison’s sake, the world’s annual energy consumption amounts to only about 0.6 zettajoules.\n__________________________\n\nFULL ESSAY -- https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-is-the-sea-so-hot\n\nNO-PAYWALL LINK -- https://archive.is/fXqYL\n\n#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency",
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