The Ocean Surface Is Warming Four Times Faster Than in the 1980s
teleSUR Desk
On Tuesday, the journal Environmental Research Letters published a study by the University of Reading showing that ocean surface warming has quadrupled over the past four decades.
At the end of the 1980s, ocean temperatures were rising at a rate of 0.06 degrees Celsius per decade, whereas now they are increasing by 0.27 degrees every ten years. This would explain the unprecedented high ocean temperatures recorded in 2023 and early 2024.
“If the oceans were a bathtub of water, we could say that in the 1980s, the hot water faucet was opening slowly, warming the water by only a fraction of a degree each decade. Now the faucet is opening much faster, and the warming is accelerating,” explained one of the study’s authors, Chris Merchant, an ocean and climate change researcher at the University of Reading.
Merchant noted that there is only one way to “slow ocean warming: start closing the hot water faucet by reducing global carbon dioxide emissions and moving toward net-zero emissions,” meaning emitting no more than the planet can absorb through its natural mechanisms.
Energy Imbalance
The accelerated warming of the oceans is due to the Earth’s growing energy imbalance, where the Earth system absorbs more energy from the Sun than it releases into space.
This imbalance has doubled since 2010, partly due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and the fact that the Earth now reflects less sunlight back into space than before. Global ocean temperatures reached historic highs for 450 consecutive days in 2023 and early 2024.
While this warming may be linked to El Niño, scientists compared it to another El Niño period in 2015-2016 and found that the rest of the record heat from the 2023-2024 period can only be explained by the faster warming of the ocean surface over the past 10 years compared to previous decades.
Forty-four percent of the high ocean surface temperatures in 2023 and early 2024 are attributed to oceans absorbing heat at an accelerated pace.
More Warming Ahead
The results indicate that the global rate of ocean warming observed in recent decades is not “an accurate guide to what will happen in the future” and warn of the possibility that the increase in sea surface temperature recorded over the past 40 years could be surpassed in just 20 years.
Since the ocean surface sets the pace for global warming, its temperature is highly significant for the climate as a whole.
“This accelerated warming of the seas highlights the urgency of reducing fossil fuel consumption to prevent even faster temperature increases in the future and to stabilize the climate,” concluded Merchant in a statement from the University of Reading.
(Courtesy: teleSUR, a Latin American multimedia platform oriented to lead and promote the unification of the peoples of the SOUTH, and a space and a voice for the construction of a new communications order.)
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We Have Entered the Era of Global Boiling: Marine Wildlife, Ecosystems, and Economies Are Being Devastated
David Hastings
The ocean absorbs 90 percent of the excess heat generated by burning fossil fuels and deforestation. Climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions is the primary driver of long-term global warming. Today, humanity is officially in uncharted waters. According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, in February 2024, the average global sea surface temperature (SST) reached 21.06 degrees Celsius, the highest level ever recorded by the service. The previous record of 20.98 degrees Celsius was set in August 2023.
Overall, 2023 saw record-breaking marine temperatures, and the likely culprit is human-caused climate change. The extraordinarily high sea surface temperatures recorded in 2023 provide a frightening glimpse into the planet’s future. A study by researchers at the University of Reading and Imperial College London, published in March 2024 in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, found that temperatures in the top 100 meters of ocean basins around the world have steadily increased since 1980. The Atlantic basin, in particular, has experienced substantial heat amplification since 2016.
They concluded that extreme sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic during 2023 “lie at the fringe of the expected mean climate change for a global surface-air temperature warming level (GWL)” of 1.5 degrees Celsius and closer to the average of 3.0 degrees Celsius GWL. If this scenario is attained globally, it would have catastrophic consequences, including the eventual collapse of ice caps. This would lead to an uncontrollable rising sea level that would consume low-lying cities and contaminate water sources with seawater worldwide.
Marine heat waves are also a factor in extreme weather events, as the energy of warm surface water leads to hurricane formation. In August 2023, Hurricane Idalia, sitting over unusually warm surface water in the Gulf of Mexico, intensified quickly. It strengthened from 80 mph winds to a Category 3 storm, gaining 40 mph in less than 24 hours. The warm water was like rocket fuel for the approaching storm.
The year 2024 did not see much relief from the heat. In August 2024, the Arctic Ocean’s mean sea surface temperatures—a critical measure of the intensity of the ice-albedo feedback cycle during a summer sea-ice melt season—were between 2 and 4 degrees Celsius warmer than mean values in most Arctic Ocean marginal seas in August of any year between 1991 and 2020, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We have entered a new era of elevated marine temperatures, which is of great concern.
According to Mercator Ocean International, a nonprofit scientific research organization based in Toulouse, France, the monthly mean sea surface temperature in the Mediterranean Sea reached 26.42 degrees Celsius in September 2024, a record high that surpassed the previous records set in 2020 and 2022. At a global level, September 2024 was the second-warmest month on record (after August 2023), with a sea surface monthly mean temperature of 20.87 degrees Celsius.
Impact on Marine Wildlife
Extreme heat in the oceans devastates coral reefs, which thrive in a narrow range of temperatures. Warm water is best for corals and their symbiotic algae, ideally between 23 and 29 degrees Celsius. If it gets much hotter, the algae that coexist with and provide food for the tiny coral polyps will be expelled, and the corals will bleach. Corals can die if the ocean water doesn’t cool quickly or if bleaching events happen repeatedly. Between 1950 and 2021, the ocean reefs have lost half of their capacity to provide ecosystem services.
Ocean temperatures of 38 degrees Celsius in the Florida Keys could harm coral and cause problems for all marine life, as evidenced by previous marine heat waves.
The so-called “Blob,” a persistent marine heat wave in the northeast Pacific Ocean from 2014 to 2016, caused a chain of events that upended entire aquatic ecosystems. It greatly impacted organisms, large and small, throughout the food chain. High surface temperatures caused krill populations to decline, and a harmful algal bloom spread in shellfish from Alaska to Southern California, shutting down the clam industry.
In February 2024, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration completed a mission to assess the impact of the 2023 marine heat wave on corals in the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary. Their preliminary findings are worrisome. The scientists found extreme heat killed nearly 80 percent of the approximately 1,500 staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis), which provide critical habitat for a host of other marine life.
“The findings from this assessment are critical to understanding the impacts to corals throughout the Florida Keys following the unprecedented marine heat wave,” said Sarah Fangman, the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary superintendent. “They also offer a glimpse into coral’s future in a warming world. When the ecosystem experiences significant stress in this way, it underscores the urgency for implementing updates to our regulations, like the Restoration Blueprint, which addresses multiple threats that will give nature a chance to hold on.”
In recent years, extreme heat has forced wildlife to feed closer to shore, entangling whales in fishing gear and stranding thousands of California sea lions. Tens of thousands of seabirds have also died due to extreme temperatures.
Impact on Fisheries
Heat waves have also caused fishery disasters, affecting populations of sardines—a key feeder fish for larger marine species—and causing the collapse of select salmon and cod fisheries.
Between 2014 and 2016, the marine region along the Pacific coastline of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico experienced an unprecedented period of intense and prolonged marine heatwaves that impacted local marine ecosystems. A team of scientists from Stanford University published a studyin Nature in November 2024 in which they calculated that during this period of elevated sea temperatures, lobster, sea urchin, and sea cucumber fisheries suffered a 15 to 58 percent decrease in aggregate landings, particularly impacting small-scale fisheries.
“In the face of extreme environmental shocks such as marine heatwaves, small-scale fisheries operating near biogeographic transition zones are among the most vulnerable,” they write.
The Era of Global Boiling
Warmer ocean temperatures have long-term impacts on the environment. This includes a reduction in the ability of the ocean to take up carbon dioxide. Warm water holds less gas, including carbon dioxide—the most important greenhouse gas—than cool water. So, as the ocean warms, less heat-trapping gas is removed from the air, and more stays in the atmosphere. It’s a vicious cycle: as the ocean warms, less carbon dioxide is absorbed, and more remains in the air, which causes the planet to heat up even more.
Marine heat waves are parallel to heat waves on land, as evidenced by 2023’s record-setting terrestrial heat waves in the southeastern United States, Southern Europe, and China. Studies of these heat waves reveal that they would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change. In July 2023, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres declared, “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”
Still, there is some good news. In 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act was passed, which directs $369 billion in investments toward modernizing the U.S. energy system. This includes reducing climate pollution by 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. While this is not enough, it’s an essential first step.
When we first recognized climate change as a serious concern many decades ago, there were no clear solutions or answers to the enormous challenges that climate scientists projected. However, with the falling cost of solar and wind energy, better battery storage, and crucial gains in energy efficiency, viable solutions that are much less expensive than burning fossil fuels are available.
Exceptionally warm global waters will not disappear. However, we can avoid the worst impacts of climate change and even hotter water temperatures by taking rapid action to strengthen local, state, and national climate policy initiatives.
(David Hastings is a climate scientist and retired professor of oceanography. Courtesy: Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute (IMI). IMI is a nonprofit organization that educates the public through a diverse array of independent media projects and programs.)
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Killing The Great Barrier Reef
Robert Hunziker
The Great Barrier Reef has been seriously damaged by too much ocean heat. According to University of Sydney: The damage is at catastrophic levels. And as stated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the southern region suffered the highest thermal stress ever recorded since satellite surveyance started in 1985. Only 3% of surveyed reefs were not bleached.
Corals can recover. if given a fighting chance. NOAA says: “Only the strongest and fastest actions to decrease global greenhouse gas emissions will reduce the risks of thermal stress on the Reef.” Well, if history is a guide, don’t count on it. CO2 has increased every year, never missed a yearly increase, since UN climate conferences started over three decades ago.
As for additional earthshattering worries, according to Arctic News: “Despite temperatures being suppressed during La Niña, the global surface air temperature reached 13.29°C on January 25, 2025, the highest temperature on record for the time of year. This is according to ERA5 data.” Despite a natural cooling off phase, called “La Niña,” global temperatures continued upwards. This could be, will probably be, bad, bad news for The Great Barrier Reef.
The ongoing catastrophe of the 2023-2024 global marine heatwave at the Great Barrier Reef is the most compelling evidence yet of the devastation caused by manmade climate change, spewing CO2 into the atmosphere by the bucketful. Indeed, when world-famous iconic landmarks go down for the count, it’s a red flag, a not-so-subtle message that manmade climate change is on a rampage like never before.
Bloomberg News took notice: Oceans Are Warming Faster and Faster as the Earth Traps More Energy, January 28, 2025: “New findings provide early evidence that burning fossil fuels played a major role in the worrying spike in ocean temperatures in 2023 and 2024.”
Bloomberg goes on to say the referenced study of ocean temperatures found evidence that the world’s oceans are warming up 4x faster than last century. “The findings have enormous ramifications for ocean health… the new study is one of the first lines of hard evidence linking the recent acceleration in global warming to burning fossil fuels, said Kim Cobb, director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society,” Ibid.
The University of Sydney published a study that highlights the alarming impact “of unprecedented marine heatwaves on coral ecosystems”: Coral Bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef now at ‘Catastrophic Levels’, The University of Sydney, January 21, 2025.
It is common scientific knowledge that the oceans have been absorbing 90% of the excessive heat generated by global warming, making the oceans the primary heat sink for the planet. But there are limits to what ocean life can tolerate. The 2023-2024 damage to the Great Barrier Reef is essentially an ocean SOS that it’s absorbing too much excessive heat to survive. It is starting to die. Too much heat is a death warrant for coral reefs. This would not be happening without extraordinary levels of CO2 bursting into the atmosphere from manmade burning fossil fuels, thus creating a “blanket effect” of CO2 that retains solar radiation. Over the years, that “blanket” has thickened into a monster as can be seen by the following:
Here’s data that demonstrates why ecosystems, like The Great Barrier Reef, are overly stressed and starting to collapse:
When JFK was president in the early 1960s the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere per year globally was 11 billion tons per year.
Now, according to Global Carbon Budget, “Total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are projected to be 41.6 billion tons in 2024, up from 40.6 billion tons last year. This includes fossil CO2 emissions of 37.4 billion, and the rest from land-use change (deforestation).”
The University of Sydney, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, tracked the health of 462 coral colonies at university’s Great Barrier Reef research station at One Tree Island over a period of 161 days to determine the impact ot the 2023-2024 global marine heatwave. The results were catastrophic: “The results revealed that 66 percent of the colonies were bleached by February 2024 and 80 per cent by April. By July, 44 percent of the bleached colonies had died, with some coral genera, such as Acropora, experiencing a staggering 95 percent mortality rate.” (Ibid.)
According to Professor Ana Vila Conceio, a co-author of the study from the School of Geoscience; ‘This research is a wake-up call for policymakers and conservationists. The resilience of coral reefs is being tested like never before.” (Ibid.)
It was only six months ago that Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority issued its 2024 Outlook Report, stating: “Great Barrier Reef on one-way path to decay thanks to climate change with no end in sight… the long-term future of the Great Barrier Reef is precarious with the impacts of global warming ‘locked in.” Now, this new study indicates the Outlook Report of only a few months ago was too conservative as portions of the “long-term” have suddenly become short-term.
What does it take for international forums like the annual UN climate conferences known as COPs (Conference of the Parties) to seriously approach the dangers to life from global warming caused by excessive CO2 because of burning fossil fuels? Will killing southern portions of the world renown iconic Great Barrier Reef move the needle enough to make a difference at the upcoming 2025 UN Climate Change Conference in November 2025 in Belém, Brazil?
Based upon three decades of climate conferences attended by 195 nations agreeing to massive reduction in CO2 to achieve NetZero by 2050, emissions have increased the year following each UN climate meeting, without fail. The Paris ’15 agreement by 195 nations to hold average global temperature to under +1.5°C pre-industrial is already failing, badly. According to the Columbia Earth Institute: “It will be clear that the world is passing through the 1.5°C ceiling, and is headed much higher, unless steps are taken to affect Earth’s energy imbalance.”
Earth’s energy imbalance is at terrifying levels indicative of more planetary heat in the pipeline, which will kill off much more than the Great Barrier Reef. Globally, Absorbed Solar Radiation (ASR) has increased since 2010 in part due to a darkening Earth, decreased ice/snow and cloud albedo which in past years reflected solar radiation back to outer space.
Here’s the really bad news, actually, horrible news: “The increase of ASR is the reason Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) since 2020 is nearly double what it was in the first decade of the 21st century. From this increased energy imbalance, we conclude that global warming in 2010-2030 should be 50- 100 percent greater than the warming rate in 1970-2010.” (James Hansen, Global Warming Acceleration: Hope vs Hopium, March 29, 2024)
Obviously, The Great Barrier Reef can’t handle 50-100% higher global warming by 2030, and who knows how badly it’ll impact the Amazon and Antarctica and Arctic permafrost and Greenland.
Within one year of Columbia Earth Institute’s statement that global warming in 2010-2030 should be 50-100% greater, and in sharp contrast to that warning, the U.S., effective January 20th, has thrown-in the towel on combating global warming. Fiendishness!
Will the rest of the world help stop loss of ecosystems that simply can’t take the heat, like the Great Barrier Reef, Greenland, Antarctica, Arctic permafrost also emitting CO2, Europe’s great rivers Rhine, Danube, Po, Rhône whacked hard, almost dried out, two years ago, Himalayan glaciers all-importance to SE Asia river systems melting fast, and harsh drought sequences clobbering the Amazon rainforest, becoming a net CO2 emitter joining along with cars, trains and planes. What’s to stop these ecosystems from collapse? They’re already tipsy.
(Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist from Los Angeles. Courtesy: Pressenza, an international news agency dedicated to news about peace and nonviolence with offices around the world.)
