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| Sun, 23rd Aug 2020 13:41:00 |
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Up to Half of The World's Oceans Are Already Affected by Climate Change |
The world's oceans have turned into a veritable sponge for our emissions, and new climate models suggest we've soaked them right through.
Since the 1950s, our planet's vast bodies of water have absorbed roughly 93 percent of the energy entering the climate system, and while most of that heating has been observed near the ocean surface, rising temperatures are now permeating even the deepest parts.
R
eal-world data on the deep ocean is hard to come by, but a new estimate, based on recent measurements and nearly a dozen climate models, suggests climate change has already impacted up to about half (20 to 55 percent) of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean basins.
What's more, in just six decades, these human-induced changes in temperature and salinity could very well spread to 80 percent of the world's oceans.
"We were interested in whether the levels of temperatures and salt were great enough to overcome natural variability in these deeper areas," explains climate scientist Yona Silvy from Sorbonne University in France. "That is, if they had risen or fallen higher than they ever would during the normal peaks and troughs."
Using temperature and salinity measurements from the deep ocean and plugging these into 11 current climate models, the team simulated ocean and atmospheric circulation over the years, with and without the contribution of human emissions.
During the second half of the 20th century, Silvy and her colleagues found human-induced warming was responsible for most observed ocean changes - "statistically" and "unambiguously" different from what would occur naturally. Because heat and salt impact ocean density and circulation, this could have widespread implications.
Read original full article
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