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The oceans have never been warmer than in 2022, according to the study published by the scientific journal Advances in atmospheric science. The analysis explains that the temperature of the seas around the world, between the surface and two thousand meters deep, has never been so high.
Michael Mann, American climatologist and geophysicist, one of the authors of the analysis, explained: "Like 5 Hiroshima bombs per second, for a whole year. Until we eliminate net CO2 emissions in the world. this process of warming of the oceans will continue." Lijing Cheng, lead author of the study and member of the IPCC, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told: "Global warming is also manifested through record highs in the oceans, but also with extreme peaks in salinity.
With the salty areas that become more and more." In short, the increase in global average temperature not only causes an increase in the more easily recognizable impacts, from exceptional heat waves to episodes of drought, from rising sea levels to the multiplication of extreme meteorological events, but also acts where the human eye does not reach.
The study of the oceans can help us understand how all terrestrial ecosystems are interconnected, and how much climate change can upset their balance.
The oceans have never been so warmer
The increase, according to the authors of the study, is equal to a trillion joules compared to the previous year.
That is, to have a term of comparison, the energy produced by the explosion of five Hiroshima bombs, every second, for an entire year. Furthermore, the increase in heat absorbed by the oceans is also accompanied by an increase in salinity and stratification.
Together, these phenomena can alter the exchanges of heat, CO2 and oxygen between the oceans and the atmosphere, dramatically impacting life in marine ecosystems and water cycles. The seas absorb more than 90 percent of the excess heat generated by human activities, starting from the combustion of fossil fuels.
As the waters warm up, the ability of the oceans themselves to perform this fundamental balancing function for the global climate is reduced. The inexorable rise in sea temperatures is the inevitable result of an energy imbalance on the Earth, associated primarily with a growing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, according to scientists.