The Earth’s Heat Has Doubled over the Past 14 Years, NASA Warned

NASA's earth observation satellites and data from the world's oceans reveal that the Earth roughly increased its heat twice as much over the course of 14 years, from 2005-2019.

Researchers from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that the planet Earth is trapping more heat than the years before, raising a quite alarming risk in the increasing climate change and global warming.

(Photo : Photo by Julian Stratenschulte/picture alliance via Getty Images)
05 March 2021, Lower Saxony, Hanover: A dog runs across a dirt road at sunrise. Photo: Julian Stratenschulte/dpa

Using the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument and additional data from Argo, an international program which uses robotic fleets or instruments to measure the oceans' shape and surface, they were able to measure the sun's energy that the earth absorbs and the ones emitted into space in the form of thermal infrared radiation.

To determine whether the planet warms up or cools down, the energy imbalance or the difference between the incoming and outflowing energy was compared years back. NASA investigator and lead author Norman Loeb said that the changes in Earth's energy imbalance are in 'really, really good agreement', and both showing a 'very large trend', describing the magnitude of increase as 'unprecedented'.

Main Stimulant of the Increased Heating

According to Loeb and his team, greenhouse gases from human activities and natural occurrences are the main catalysts of trapping heat on Earth. In addition, due to melting ice sheets, the Earth's surface emits less of the incoming energy into space.

Although the oceans are known to absorb about 90% of these excess incoming energies, the data from heating ocean, land and atmosphere, and melting ice shows that the energy being reflected back into the space had decreased during mid-2005 through mid-2019.

Meanwhile, the team also discovered another contribution from a natural recurring pattern called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). This pattern was 'unusually intense' that it reduced the cloud formation above the ocean, causing the planet to absorb more incoming energy.

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An Alarming Trend and a Real Phenomenon

Despite the fact that the finding was a result of an 'instrumental artifact', the scientists are convinced that the phenomenon is a real trend, and 'quite alarming in a sense'. Loeb described it as both natural caused by anthropogenic climate drivers and an 'internal variability'.

"The two very independent ways of looking at changes in Earth's energy imbalance are in really, really good agreement, and they're both showing this very large trend, which gives us a lot of confidence that what we're seeing is a real phenomenon and not just an instrumental artifact," Loeb said.

"Over this period they're both causing warming, which leads to a fairly large change in Earth's energy imbalance. The magnitude of the increase is unprecedented in this record," he added.

While the study was conducted in a shorter period of time, it is observed that the doubling amount of heat trapped in Earth's surface is even more off-track than expected and can lead to worse events such as rise in sea level and temperature.

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