An international research team led by the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig, which also includes several VUB researchers, calculated that since the 1960s the thermal energy stored in land masses has increased significantly. The heat stored in the soil of the continents is twenty times greater than in 1960 and the heat storage on the continents is increasing much faster than the warming in the oceans and in the atmosphere.
Global warming is one of the consequences of climate change. “The increase in man-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere prevents the radiation of heat towards space, so that our planet has to absorb more heat,” the VUB researchers said in a press release. “The storage of this extra energy takes place in various ‘places’. Mainly in the oceans (89 percent), but also in the land masses of the continents (5-6 percent), in ice and glaciers (4 percent) and in the atmosphere (1-2 percent).”
It wasn’t always clear to scientists how this extra heat was distributed in our planet’s landmass. “The research team has now been able to more accurately determine how much heat was stored in the continental land masses between 1960 and 2020,” says Dr. Inne Vanderkelen, a climate researcher who participated in the study. “The continental land masses of the world have absorbed as much heat between 1960 and 2020 as is needed to produce about 1800 times Germany’s electricity consumption over the same period. Most of that heat, about 90 percent, is stored up to 300 meters deep in the earth. Nine percent of the energy is slowly thawing the permafrost in the Arctic and 0.7 percent is stored in inland bodies of water such as lakes and reservoirs.”
Times 20 in 60 years
That stored heat in the land masses is constantly increasing. This is evident from the results of the study. “Between the beginning (1960-1970) and the end (2010-2020) of the study period, that amount has increased almost twenty times,” says Vanderkelen. These results are important because “the increase in them is accompanied by processes that can change ecosystems and thus have consequences for society.”
“While the amount of heat stored in the permafrost accounts for barely 9 percent of onshore heat storage, the increase in recent years is driving the release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane,” the scientists said. “Also, as the thermal energy stored in the ground increases, the Earth’s surface warms up, jeopardizing the stability of the carbon stored in the soil. In agricultural areas, the associated warming of the earth’s surface can pose a risk to harvests and thus to the food security of the population.”
The study was published in Earth System Dynamics under the title “Continental Heat Storage: Contributions from the Ground, Inland Waters, and Permafrost Thawing.” It is a first breakthrough in better quantifying and monitoring global warming, “an important indicator for understanding how changes in natural processes due to heat storage will affect humans and nature in the future”, says co-author Professor Wim Thiery (VUB).
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