Seas broke ominous temperature records last year – adding to the risk of natural disasters

Researchers from China, the USA, Italy and New Zealand reported that 2022 was the warmest year in the world’s oceans to date. This continues a trend of ocean warming that has been notable since the mid-1980s – a clear indication of global warming.

Namely, it is the oceans that absorb most, 90 percent, of the global warming as a result of human emissions of carbon dioxide.

persistent records

Until we get to net zero emissions, this warming will continue, and we will continue to break records as we did this year. The professor says that awareness and a better understanding of the oceans is the basis for being able to combat climate change Michael Mann at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the authors of the AFP report.

With warming seas and changes in the water cycle, weather is affected. Extreme weather events and natural disasters are increasing in frequency and on a larger scale.

Some places experience more droughts, increasing the risk of wildfires, and others experience massive floods from heavy rains, which are often boosted by increased evaporation from warming oceans, he says. Kevin Trenberth From the US National Research Institute National Center for Atmospheric Research and one of the other researchers behind the study.

“nightmare”

Ocean salinity also reached a record level in 2022. Increasing ocean heat and increasing salinity has led to stratification of ocean water, so that the different levels do not mix. It has major implications in the form of oxygen loss in the sea. “This in itself is a nightmare not only for marine life but also for ecosystems on land,” the researchers commented, according to Agence France-Presse.

Published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, the study is based on findings from 24 researchers at 16 scientific institutions around the world.

Earlier this week, statistics from the European Union’s Copernicus (C3S) environment monitoring program showed that 2022 was the fifth warmest year on record, measured in surface air temperatures. Higher temperatures were only observed in 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2020.

Summer in Europe was by a clear margin the hottest on the continent.