Extreme Temperature Diary- January 12th, 2019/ Topic: More Warnings From The Ocean

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Saturday January 12th… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing post will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials)😊. 

More Warnings From The Oceans

The worst global warning sign in my recollection came from the planet’s oceans this week. Think of both the atmosphere and oceans as one tremendous fluid layer encompassing the Earth’s surface. The radiation imbalance by carbon pollution is storing more heat in the “fluid skin” of the Earth, but from year to year in the atmosphere, at least recently, not all years are subsequently warmer than prior ones. The year 2018 will come in as 4th warmest on record since 1880 for both the combined ocean’s surface and land areas. We have learned, however, that 2018 will get top billing for the planet’s oceans. Today’s post will focus on more work and findings by Zeke Hausfather, who made this new announcement.

First, as I’ve been stating from time to time on this blog, the oceans store much more heat than the atmosphere:

Now we learn that each subsequent year since 2016 has seen record heat content:

Let’s refer to this recently published Inside Climate News article:

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10012019/ocean-warming-accelerating-sea-level-rise-hurricanes-climate-change-science-review

Quoting: 

A new study published Thursday strengthens the consensus that the warming of the world’s oceans is accelerating. 

It’s a trend that climate models have long predicted, but it had been difficult to confirm until recently. 

The findings are vindication of the scientific community’s work so far and lend greater weight to the projections for warming through the end of this century, said Gavin Schmidt, a leading climate scientist at Columbia University who was not involved in the study.

From the article here is the main graphic:

Chart: Ocean Warming Is Accelerating

More from Zeke:

The last stunning chart should make any contrarian pause.

Think of that 93% heat content in the Earth’s oceans as a big ammunition dump. The more energy stored in the oceans the greater chances for bigger explosions at the ocean’s surface such as what occurred with Sandy in 2012 and Michael in 2018. It’s going to literally take centuries for natural forces to defuse this dump by redistributing that heat energy even if we stop carbon pollution worldwide today. We don’t have any more time to stop adding to the planetary system’s “heat ammunition dump” to prevent bigger explosions.

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Here is some more weather and climate news from Saturday:

(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have  put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity.) 

 

(If you like these posts and my work please contribute via the PayPal widget, which has recently been added to this site. Thanks in advance for any support.) 

The Climate Guy

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