The Washington Post reports that “a rapid surge in global ocean temperatures in recent months is raising the specter of a climate pattern shift that could accelerate planetary warming and supercharge trends that already are fueling extreme storms, deadly heat waves, and ecological crises on land and sea.”
There was a “spike” in global average surface ocean temperatures since early March—of about 0.2 °C. We “just know” that as atmospheric greenhouse gases increase, “the planet will continue to set new climate and weather precedents, and oceans will grow ever hotter,” said Michael McPhaden, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The figure shows perspective over geologic time.
When the earth was ice-free, the deep ocean temperature was up to 16 °C warmer than now. We have been in a global cooling trend since the Eocene Thermal Maximum 50 million years ago, when the ancestors of all existing species lived, states Patrick Moore.
What caused these tremendous changes? Not prehistoric combustion of “fossil fuels”! Transfer of heat by ocean currents was colossally changed by tectonic shifts that rearranged continents and blocked currents, as explained by geoscientist Tom Gallagher. There have been two states of climate on earth: the default condition: dry, dusty, cold, and glacial, and the current condition: wet, warm, non-glacial times when vegetation and civilization thrive.
There have been recent variations in ocean temperature, though it is difficult to distinguish cyclical from secular trends when there is very little reliable direct measurement data until quite recently. There was major heating of the oceans early in the 20th century. Then they cooled, and now we’re barely back to 1950s levels.
Could this warming have been caused by slight differences (< 1 °C) in atmospheric temperature? That is absurd. Water has a very high heat capacity. The heat content of the oceans increased by 400 zetajoules (zeta means 1021) over 50 years. Over that period, human consumption of energy was 22 ZJ. The estimated energy of the world’s total fossil-fuel reserves as of 2010 was only 40 ZJ, as pointed out by Willie Soon (see video from Doctors for Disaster Preparedness 41st annual meeting at about 7:49 minutes).
Compared with natural forces, human production of CO2 and its possible effect on climate is negligible. Regulating meat eating, methane production by cows, nitrogen release from farming, transportation fuels, and electricity production will devastate human populations and living standards—with zero impact on ocean temperature.
We are not “boiling the oceans,” despite Al Gore’s claim at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2023.
Additional information:
“The Week That Was,” Science and Environmental Policy Project, www.sepp.org.