Climate Change Study: Man-Made Heat Absorbed by Oceans Doubled Since 1997
Man-made heat energy present in the seas has now doubled since 1997, according to the new study headed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which was released Monday.
As reported by First Post, the reason behind the phenomenon is the man-made emissions of greenhouse gases from burning of oil, coal and other gases. These gases, which are trapped in the atmosphere, are holding the heat inside the planet affecting the oceans more as opposed to the ground.
U.S. scientists also stressed out that the warming of the oceans shows that the world's global warming issue is already getting worst despite the slowing down of the temperature rise on the Earth's surface.
HNGN reported that the heat energy absorbed by the ocean has been compared by the experts to the heat energy created in 1945 when the atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima, Japan. And that phenomenon is happening underwater every second for almost 75 years now.
As stated by the Journal Nature Climate Change, approximately 150 zettajoules of energy was absorbed by the world's ocean from 1865 to 1997 and another 150 zettajoules was absorbed only within 18 years from 1998 to 2015. The numbers are really increasing fast and that's what experts and study authors are bothered by.
"The changes we're talking about, they are really, really big numbers," said study co-author Paul Durack, an oceanographer at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California. He also added that after 2000, the rate of change has indeed rocketed.
Experts shared that the oceans absorb heat only just a few tenths of a degree. But as the heat accumulates through time, it tends to get warmer. "The warmer the oceans get, the less heat they can absorb and the more heat stays in the air and on land surface," Chris Forest, the study's co-author at Pennsylvania State University, said.
The Oregon State University marine sciences Professor Jane Lubchenco also said that their findings only show that Earth's marine life is now getting in danger.
"These finding have potentially serious consequences for life in the oceans as well as for patterns of ocean circulation, storm tracks and storm intensity," Lubchenco said.
Today, it is expected that the vast ocean will tend to absorb more amount of heat. Experts are still unsure if the oceans will eventually release the absorbed heat into the atmosphere or not.
Jeff Severinghaus at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography compliments the study, saying it "provides real, hard evidence that humans are dramatically heating the planet."
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