New Delhi:
The ocean heating rate has quadrupled in the last four decades, according to a new study on Tuesday, explaining why 2023 and early 2024 saw unprecedented sea temperatures. The study, published in the Environmental Research Letters magazine, showed that ocean temperatures were increasing to approximately 0.06 degrees Celsius per decade at the end of the 1980s. However, they are currently increasing to 0.27 degrees Celsius per decade.
“If the oceans were a water bath, then in the 1980s, the hot fauce Speed, “said Professor Chris Merchant, at Reading University, the United Kingdom.
Merchant said that cutting global carbon emissions and moving towards Net Zero is the only way to slow down. In 2023 and early 2024, world temperatures of the ocean reached maximum record for 450 days.
In addition to El Niño, a natural warming event in the Pacific, the team discovered that the heating of the sea surface increased faster in the last 10 years than in previous decades. The study indicated that approximately 44 percent of record heat was attributable to the heat of ocean absorption at an acceleration speed.
The findings show that the general rate of world warming of the ocean observed in recent decades is not a precise guide of what happens below: it is plausible that the increase in the temperature of the ocean observed in the last 40 years is exceeded in the next 20 years.
Because the superficial oceans establish the rhythm for global warming, this is important for the climate as a whole, the team explained.
This heating accelerator underlines the urgency of reducing the burning of fossil fuels to avoid even faster temperature increases in the future and start stabilizing the climate.
The heating of ocean temperatures can increase the spread of diseases in marine species. This in turn can affect humans, consuming marine species or wound infections exposed in marine environments.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a union feed).