{"id":7070,"date":"2015-04-03T07:37:41","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T12:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=7070"},"modified":"2015-04-03T07:37:41","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T12:37:41","slug":"how-long-can-oceans-continue-to-absorb-earths-excess-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=7070","title":{"rendered":"How Long Can Oceans Continue To Absorb Earth\u2019s Excess Heat?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/e360.yale.edu\/feature\/how_long_can_oceans_continue_to_absorb_earths_excess_heat\/2860\/\" target=\"_blank\">How Long Can Oceans Continue\u00a0To Absorb Earth\u2019s Excess Heat?<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"dek\"><strong><em>The main reason soaring greenhouse gas emissions have not caused air temperatures to rise more rapidly is that oceans have soaked up much of the heat. But new evidence suggests the oceans\u2019 heat-buffering ability may be weakening.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">For decades, the earth\u2019s oceans have soaked up more than\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.oceanscientists.org\/index.php\/topics\/ocean-warming\" target=\"_blank\">nine-tenths<\/a>\u00a0of the atmosphere\u2019s excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions. By stowing that extra energy in their depths, oceans have spared the planet from feeling the full effects of humanity\u2019s carbon overindulgence.<\/p>\n<p>But as those gases build in the air, an energy overload is rising below the waves. A raft of recent research finds that the ocean has been heating faster and deeper than scientists had previously thought. And there are new signs that the oceans might be starting to release some of that pent-up thermal\u00a0energy, which could contribute to significant global temperature increases in the coming years.<\/p>\n<p>The ocean has been heating at a rate of around\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/journals.ametsoc.org\/doi\/full\/10.1175\/JCLI-D-13-00294.1\" target=\"_blank\">0.5 to 1 watt<\/a>\u00a0of energy per square meter over the past decade,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nodc.noaa.gov\/OC5\/3M_HEAT_CONTENT\/\" target=\"_blank\">amassing<\/a>\u00a0more than 2 X 10<sup>23<\/sup>\u00a0joules of energy \u2014 the equivalent of roughly five Hiroshima bombs exploding every second \u2014 since 1990. Vast and slow to change temperature, the oceans have a huge capacity to sequester heat, especially the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/grl.50382\/full\" target=\"_blank\">deep ocean<\/a>, which is playing an increasingly large uptake and storage role.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">That is a major reason the planet\u2019s surface temperatures have risen less than expected in the past dozen or so years, given the large greenhouse gas hike during the same period, said Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist with the<a href=\"http:\/\/ncar.ucar.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">National Center for Atmospheric Research<\/a>. The phenomenon, which some call the \u201chiatus,\u201d has challenged scientists to explain its cause. But new studies indicate that the forces behind the supposed hiatus are natural\u00a0<\/span>\u2014 and temporary \u2014 ocean processes that may already be changing course.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How Long Can Oceans Continue\u00a0To Absorb Earth\u2019s Excess Heat? The main reason soaring greenhouse gas emissions have not caused air temperatures to rise more rapidly is that oceans have soaked up much of the heat. But new evidence suggests the oceans\u2019 heat-buffering ability may be weakening. For decades, the earth\u2019s oceans have soaked up more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[113,141,4601,369,1115,4602,1790],"class_list":["post-7070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-carbon-emissions","tag-climate-change","tag-earths-heat","tag-global-warming","tag-greenhouse-gas-emissions","tag-ocean-heating","tag-oceans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7071,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7070\/revisions\/7071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}