Oceanic Heat Sink Gives More Warning of Global Warming
By MARK MURO
© Earth Times News Service
March 31, 2000
TUCSON--So THAT's where the rest of the heat's going. For a
while, one aspect of the increasingly ironclad case for global
warming had remained nebulous: the role and effect of the
world's oceans. Computer models have long predicted the oceans
would soak up some of the atmosphere's warming, thereby delaying
the warming of the air. However, scientists have never been able
to demonstrate the ocean's heat absorption--and that provided a
key opening to critics of the notion of global climate change
and the need to do something about it.
But now look: Last week, American scientists published in the
journal Science powerful evidence that the world's oceans ARE
heating up. Based on 5.1 million measurements all around the
world and deep in the seas, the new analysis shows average world
ocean temperatures have increased dramatically since the 1950s:
about half a degree Fahrenheit close to the surface, and one-
tenth of a degree even at depths of up to 10,000 feet.
This may not sound like a torrid pace of warming. But actually
it represents a rapid heating--more than enough to begin melting
icebergs, raising sea levels and stirring up extreme weather.
And more: Here arrives one more disturbing, persuasive argument
that global warming is indeed happening.
That the oceans are sucking up huge amounts of the climate's
total warming goes a long way toward explaining why only about
half the surface warming that should have appeared to date has.
So no longer will global warming skeptics be able to use the
missing warmth as a basis for debunking predictions of graver
problems ahead. As it turns out about half the greenhouse's
warming went into the sea, after all, and in the decades ahead
that heat will percolate out into the air to cause even more
heating. Or as Sydney Levitus, chief of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration lab that carried out the research,
declared: "We've known the oceans could absorb heat...Now we see
evidence that this is happening. This brings the climate debate
to a new level. We can no longer ignore the oceans."
So let's not ignore them. Instead, let international policy-
makers, industries and regular folks stare carefully at the
seas, and realize what it means that they too are getting
warmer. For believe it: Global warming is real, it's
accelerating and attention must be paid. America, and other
lagging nations, absolutely must re-energize the drifting Kyoto
process to reduce fossil fuel consumption--or risk a slow
disaster.
SOURCE: The Earth Times
****************************************************************
To post a submission by email at climate-newswire@sidsnet.org
To unsubscribe, email to majordomo@sidsnet.org with the message:
unsubscribe climate-newswire
To receive updates via email, send an email to majordomo@sidsnet.org with the message:
subscribe climate-newswire
No SUBJECTS required either case.
Brought to you on the SMALL Island Developing States Network: http://www.sidsnet.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Apr 04 2000 - 08:25:21 EDT