In January, an international group of researchers said the amount of heat in the upper oceans in 2022 would exceed last year’s level by about 10 zeta joules – the equivalent of 100 times the worldwide electricity generation in 2021.
Records going back to the late 1950s show a steady increase in surface temperatures, with an almost continuous increase peaking around 1985.
While the ocean surface responds relatively quickly to global warming, the deep ocean “usually adjusts over centuries to millennia”, said Karina von Schuckmann, a researcher specialized in ocean monitoring at Mercator Ocean.
Like sea level rise over hundreds of years as a result of today’s carbon emissions, she said the heat content of the ocean “will continue to rise long after surface temperatures stabilize”.
“In other words, projections suggest that historical ocean warming is irreversible” over this century, with the ultimate net warming dependent on our emissions.
For Frederic Hourdin, research director at the CNRS Dynamic Meteorology Laboratory, the latest surface temperatures should raise awareness of the bigger climate change picture.
Clearly, he said, we are still “not sufficiently aware that the objective is to do without oil and coal”.