Finally, we know why the oceans are in a hot standard chain

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Earth’s oceans caught fever in March 2023 that were not yet broken. Since then, the circumstances similar to bathing coral reefs have been killed in a record fracture A mass whitening eventand Hurricane foodAnd Fisheries were entirely collapsed.

I created two years of heat Scientific puzzleWith 450 consecutive days of the global high sea surface temperatures from April 2023 to July 2024 – a series that exceeded the predictions of climate scientists even when calculating climate change and natural climate style known as Ninho. A study published by researchers at the University of Reding on Tuesday helps to solve the puzzle and indicates a prominent perpetrator: the sun.

the Ticket In environmental research messages, I found that the average ocean temperature has increased more than four years over the past forty years, driven by the increasing power balance of the Earth – which represents nearly 44 percent of the additional heat in the last years of Nenio. Thanks to the besiege of the heat Greenhouse gases And a decrease in reflection, the planet absorbs more energy than the sun than it escapes into space. Since 2010, according to the study, this contrast has doubled.

“There was an increase in this imbalance and has increased the rise in the ocean temperature,” said Christopher Merchant, professor of ocean and land monitoring at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom and the head of the study.

By looking back through satellite notes since 1985 and developing a statistical model of isolating trends in both ocean temperatures and lack of energy balance on Earth, researchers found that they were escalating in Lockstep. According to the traders, the study may be the first to connect the phenomenon over recent decades. He said, “It is a very narrow relationship.”

This relationship is bad news of the oceans, which absorbed some 90 percent From excessive warming of human activity. Some of these heat will continue to leak into the depths of the planet, while some will return to the surface and Escape to the air. According to the study, the next twenty years can heat the oceans more than forty.

If you are considering the oceans as a bathroom, Merchant says, it is like a hot tap it was just meager in the 1980s – but now, it was circulated. “What is going on around the tap is more open, which makes the speed of warming, is an increase in greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide and Methane Both are still high, to a large extent of fossil fuel industry. “

There are other factors that raise heat. The Nino style that started in 2023 added about 0.1 or 0.2 ° C, before assuming the Reverse La Niña style in December 2024.

There is another part of the mystery is the reflection of the decreasing planet, according to Brian McNandy, the air scientist at Rosenstil College at the University of Rosenstil at Miami University. The dark surface of the ocean helps absorb heat, while white clouds and atmospheric molecules in the atmosphere help the sun’s bridal to space. In 2020, the International Maritime Organization adopted a new base to reduce sulfur pollution from fuel shipping, but because the molecules of the emissions were a cloud seed, the organization had an unintended effect on the breakdown of the marine layer of the clouds of the surrounding blanket.

“So I got rid of many of these, and now the energy of the sun can be absorbed into the ocean rather than thinking about clouds,” said McKinniedi. According to traders, efforts to reduce air pollution from factories in countries like China had a side effect Reducing inverter atmosphere.

The excess warmth of the ocean had wide consequences. In April 2024, with the start of the oceans, 77 percent of the world’s coral reefs became at risk at the most comprehensive event on the record, The threat of livelihoods of one billion people and a quarter of marine life. Changing ocean temperatures also change the weather patterns, possibly delicacy, precipitation, and storms.

“Hurricanes love warm water. So all other objects are equal, the warmer ocean can produce stronger hurricanes with more frequent tricks than rapid condensation.” Last September, Hurricane Helen was criticized on the coast of the Gulf of Florida after rising from 1 category to a 4 -day storm in one day.

“The oceans really put the frequency of global warming as a whole,” said Merchant. Restricted effects-such as forest fires, droughts and floods-in escalation will continue. “This must be truly understood, but it also needs to liquidate to governments that changes may come down faster than they are currently assumed.”

This article was originally appeared in Barrier in https://grist.org/oCeans/why-earth-oxeans-RCORD-Hot Streak/. Grist is a non -profit and independent media organization dedicated to the novel of climate solution stories and a just future. Learn more in Grist.org