Just How Quickly Is Our Earth Warming?
by Professor Bruce E. Johansen
Back about 1997, when the genius of James E Hansen taught me that there was something very serious about this global warming business, many people who had any ideas about it thought of it as staple hippie food. Hansen and a number of other scientists had it right – that the world’s increase in carbon dioxide and a few different “trace” gases could ruin the Earth.
All the same, even today, very few people outside a small core of climate scientists understand just how quickly the Earth and its oceans are heating. Granted, I am no climate scientist, but I do know how to combine small-caliber numbers from reliable sources and compare them. Thus, my email inbox overflows nearly every day.
One tidbit from the British Broadcasting Corp (BBC): “Fuelled by climate change, the world’s oceans have broken temperature records every single day over the past year 2000, a BBC analysis found.
Nearly 50 days have smashed existing highs for the time of year by the largest margin in the satellite era. That is, the largest length of time that satellites have been available to track them [or about 1979.]
Planet-warming gases are mostly to blame, but the natural weather event El Niño has also helped warm the seas.
“The super-heated oceans have hit marine life hard and driven a new wave of coral bleaching.”
Record-busting year for ocean temperature
A few days before my eyes slid over that piece, I found this, also from the BBC, I saw this:
“Every single day since May 2023, the ocean surface temperature’s global average was the highest it has been — sometimes by a whopping margin. Data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Service, analyzed by the BBC, paint a dramatic picture of the impact of ocean warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, coupled with a strong El Niño weather event. Warmer waters could bring more ferocious hurricanes, cause penguins’ icy fledging sites to melt, and have already caused disastrous coral bleaching. ‘These are real signs of the environment moving into areas where we don’t want it to be, and if it carries on in that direction, the consequences will be severe,” says oceanographer Mike Meredith.’ (BBC)
For a more comprehensive and quick gauge of how our ocean water has warmed, compare the previous oceanic high of about 101 to 102F. to the new high last summer, of almost 102F near the Florida Keys.
To understand how quickly our oceans have heated, look at the previous oceanic high of about 100 F. Look now at the new record I01.8) near the Florida Keys. The new record was as warm as a bathtub. As Bob Dylan used to sing: “You don’t need a weathervane to tell which way the wind blows.”
Bruce E. Johansen has written and published several books on this climate change during the past 25 years, the most recent of which will be Nationalism and Nature: War and Warming, due out in October from Springer publishers in Frankfurt, Germany.
Back about 1997, when the genius of James E Hansen taught me that there was something very serious about this global warming business, many people who had any ideas about it thought of it as staple hippie food. Hansen and a number of other scientists had it right – that the world’s increase in carbon dioxide and a few different “trace” gases could ruin the Earth.
All the same, even today, very few people outside a small core of climate scientists understand just how quickly the Earth and its oceans are heating. Granted, I am no climate scientist, but I do know how to combine small-caliber numbers from reliable sources and compare them. Thus, my email inbox overflows nearly every day.
One tidbit from the British Broadcasting Corp (BBC): “Fuelled by climate change, the world’s oceans have broken temperature records every single day over the past year 2000, a BBC analysis found.
Nearly 50 days have smashed existing highs for the time of year by the largest margin in the satellite era. That is, the largest length of time that satellites have been available to track them [or about 1979.]
Planet-warming gases are mostly to blame, but the natural weather event El Niño has also helped warm the seas.
“The super-heated oceans have hit marine life hard and driven a new wave of coral bleaching.”
Record-busting year for ocean temperature
A few days before my eyes slid over that piece, I found this, also from the BBC, I saw this:
“Every single day since May 2023, the ocean surface temperature’s global average was the highest it has been — sometimes by a whopping margin. Data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Service, analyzed by the BBC, paint a dramatic picture of the impact of ocean warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, coupled with a strong El Niño weather event. Warmer waters could bring more ferocious hurricanes, cause penguins’ icy fledging sites to melt, and have already caused disastrous coral bleaching. ‘These are real signs of the environment moving into areas where we don’t want it to be, and if it carries on in that direction, the consequences will be severe,” says oceanographer Mike Meredith.’ (BBC)
For a more comprehensive and quick gauge of how our ocean water has warmed, compare the previous oceanic high of about 101 to 102F. to the new high last summer, of almost 102F near the Florida Keys.
To understand how quickly our oceans have heated, look at the previous oceanic high of about 100 F. Look now at the new record I01.8) near the Florida Keys. The new record was as warm as a bathtub. As Bob Dylan used to sing: “You don’t need a weathervane to tell which way the wind blows.”
Bruce E. Johansen has written and published several books on this climate change during the past 25 years, the most recent of which will be Nationalism and Nature: War and Warming, due out in October from Springer publishers in Frankfurt, Germany.
