Global Ocean Temperatures

Increased

“Temperature is one of the most fundamental descriptors of the physical state of the ocean”, global temperature change is twice what scientists have observed for the past 50 years, suggesting the oceans have been warming for much longer than just a few decades. According to Mr. Roemmich and his team found that on average, global ocean temperatures increased by 0.59 degrees F (0.33 degrees C) in the upper ocean down to about 2,300 feet (700 meters). Scientists have determined that 90 per cent of the excess heat added to Earth’s climate system since the 1960s has been stored in the oceans.

Mr. Roemmich and his colleagues compared that temperature with data from the modern-day Argo project, which uses 3,500 free-drifting floats to measure the temperature and salinity, or salt content, of the world’s oceans every 10 days.

It showed a 1.1-degree Fahrenheit (0.59-degree Celsius) rise in temperatures at the ocean’s surface over the last 135 years, a result corroborated by a large body of sea-surface temperature data that goes back more than 100 years. The researchers also looked at subsurface temperature differences between Challenger and Argo, taking into account several sources of error in the Challenger readings. “So that means that the ocean temperature is probably the most direct measure we have of the energy imbalance of the whole climate system”.

Source: The Hindu