An alarming report by the annual State of the Climate tells us ocean warming levels are getting worse and worse.
Published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the report compiled information submitted by 413 independent scientists from 58 countries. According to them, the warming of sea levels has hit an all-time high last 2014.
“This report represents data from around the globe, from hundreds of scientists and gives us a picture of what happened in 2014,” said Thomas Karl, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the group responsible for gathering the reports. “The variety of indicators shows us how our climate is changing, not just in temperature but from the depths of the oceans to the outer atmosphere,” he explained.
What’s more, the report also confirmed that even if greenhouse gas levels were quickly discontinued, the oceans will still continue to warm for many years ahead.
The report also revealed that the global surface temperature has been at the warmest recorded level. The average annual temperature for 2014 was 0.37-0.44oC (0.7-0.79oF) which is significantly higher than anything recorded from 1981-2010.
Over 20 European nations have also noted that they have witnessed high temperature records. The same goes for the continent of Africa. Overall, the only places that experienced a drop on land temperatures were eastern parts of the United States, central and southern Canada, as well as a few locations in central Asia.
The researchers noted that the warming sea temperature definitely spells trouble. It simply means that the climbing temperature will mean increasing sea levels as well as more cyclones and continuous melting of sea ice and glaciers.
Ocean warming has now officially been declared as unstoppable. So hopefully, more people will be aware about that and could take the necessary precautions as we experiences the consequences in the years ahead.
