Ocean Temperature Reaches "Point of No Return" as Climate Change Creates Irreversible Scenario

According to studies, extreme temperatures in the world's seas exceeded the "point of no return" since in 2014 and is now the new normal.

Rising Sea Temperatures

According to scientists, sea surface temperatures have risen due to global warming during the previous 150 years. They discovered that since 2014, severe temperatures that happened just 2% of the time a century ago had occurred at least 50% of the time over the worldwide ocean.

Extreme temperatures occur 90% of the time in specific locations, wreaking havoc on animals. The ocean absorbs more than 90% of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases, crucial in maintaining a stable climate.

"They proved that climate change is not ambiguous and may happen in the distant future - it's historical truth and has already occurred," said Kyle Van Houtan, a member of the study team from the Monterey Bay Aquarium in the United States.

Extreme climate change is here, and it's in the ocean, which is the bedrock of all life on Earth.

Van Houtan and his colleague Kisei Tanaka are ecologists who started the investigation to see if heat extremes were linked to the disappearance of kelp forests off the coast of California.

Ecological Extremes

According to Van Houtan, "ecology informs us that extremes have an outsized influence on ecosystems." "We're attempting to figure out what's causing the huge changes we've observed on coral reefs, kelp, white sharks, sea otters, fish, and more along our shores and in the ocean."

In a study published in Nature in 2019, other scientists claimed that the number of heatwaves hitting the world's seas has grown dramatically, destroying vast swaths of marine life in the manner of "wildfires that consume vast swaths of forest."

Van Houtan and Tanaka discovered no way to detect excessive heat. Therefore, they expanded their research internationally.

The study, published in the journal Plos Climate, looked at monthly temperatures in each one-degree-by-one-degree section of the ocean and used the greatest temperature in 50 years as a benchmark for excessive heat.

Comparing Historical Records

The researchers looked at temperature records from 1920 to 2019, the most recent year for which data was available.

They discovered that by 2014, over half of all monthly records throughout the ocean had above the once-in-a-fifty-years severe heat threshold.

The year when the percentage reached 50% and did not go below it in succeeding years was dubbed the "point of no return" by the researchers.

Point of No Return

By 2019, 57 percent of the world's oceans were experiencing severe temperatures. "We expect this to continue to rise," Van Houtan added. However, the excessive heat was particularly intense in some sections of the ocean, with the South Atlantic reaching its limit in 1998. "It's incredible to think that was 24 years ago," he remarked.

Eighty percent to ninety percent of the ocean is already experiencing excessive heat in some big ecosystems. The five worst-affected places are located off the northeast coastlines of the United States and Canada, off Somalia and Indonesia, and in the Norwegian Sea.

Getting Worse

In 2021, the heat content of the ocean's top 2,000 meters reached a new record for the sixth time. In Minnesota, Prof. John Abraham of the University of St Thomas, part of the assessment team, stated that ocean heat content was the most critical factor in global climate.

At the same time, surface temperatures were the most crucial factor in weather patterns and many ecosystems.

"Understanding climate change requires an understanding of the oceans. According to Abraham, they cover over 70% of the planet's surface and absorb more than 90% of global warming heat. The new study is useful because it examines surface temperatures," says the author.

Furthermore, it was discovered that severe heat at the ocean's surface has increased dramatically and that the extremes are getting worse.

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