Losing Nemo! Highest ocean temperatures EVER in 2019

Cliff Mitchell - 17/01/2020
 

Oceans hottest they have ever been.

"Warming is continuing, it has accelerated, and it is unabated. Unless we do something significant and quickly, it's really dire news."

Sea-level rise, ocean acidification and extreme weather will get worse as the oceans go on absorbing excess heat.

"Warming is continuing, it has accelerated, and it is unabated. Unless we do something significant and quickly, it's really dire news." Professor John Abraham, joint author of a new report on ocean warming.

"The moment of crisis has come!"
"This is an urgent problem that has to be solved and, what's more, we know how to do it - that's the paradoxical thing, that we're refusing to take steps that we know have to be taken." Sir David Attenborough

The UK government must be forced to take action now - otherwise it will be too little too late.

The world's oceans are warmer than ever — and they are getting warmer faster, according to a new report.

In a development that provides yet further evidence of global warming, the study found that ocean temperatures in the last decade have been the warmest on record.

In addition, the research illustrates the influence of human-induced warming on the Earth's waters and indicates that sea-level rise, ocean acidification and extreme weather could get worse as the oceans go on absorbing excess heat.

As global warming speeds up, so does the rise in sea levels. While 2004 to 2010 saw oceans rise by about 15 millimeters in total, this value doubled for 2010 to 2016. Tropical regions in the western Pacific are especially affected, threatening many of the coastal areas and low-lying islands with submersion by the end of the century.

'Really dire news'

"The pace of warming has increased about 500% since the late 1980s," John Abraham, one of the researchers behind the study, told NBC News.

Abraham, who is a professor of thermal sciences at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, was not surprised by the results of the study.

"The findings, to be honest, were not unexpected. Warming is continuing, it has accelerated, and it is unabated. Unless we do something significant and quickly, it's really dire news."

 

Credits

Deutsche Welle
Share this article