2023 will go down in history for the collection of extreme environmental phenomena that have occurred – historic droughts, hurricanes in unexpected places, forest fires of apocalyptic magnitude…-. However, climate scientists focus on two variables that have been less in the news, but which they consider key: lat sea and ocean temperatures, and polar melting.
“The oceans store 93% of the planet’s thermal excess, and they don’t do it overnight. “The increase in temperature that they have shown in 2023 responds to the extra heat that they have been absorbing in recent years,” he says. Veronica Nievesdirector of Ai4Oceans, a department at the University of Valencia dedicated to the study of climate and extreme phenomena with artificial intelligence.
In his department they pay special attention to the behavior of the seas and oceans and believe that what happened this year is unusual. “The Mediterranean has warmed 20% more than the global average, we have spent more than 30 days above 27 degrees. And it hasn’t only happened in the Mediterranean. The anomalies “They exceed 2.4 and 3 degrees in many regions, there have been marine heat waves,” he lists.
But beyond these extraordinary measurements that we have recorded in 2023, this scientist is especially concerned about the future. “The heat that the oceans have absorbed is irreversible. We will see the effects for decades. The question is knowing how the deep ocean layers when they have to absorb the heat that we are adding right now,” he warns.
“We like the water to not be cold when we bathe in summer, but people are not aware of the amount of energy that you have to put in a body of water like the Atlantic or the Mediterranean for it to rise one degree. There are studies that calculate that the heat we have put into the oceans since the 1970s is equivalent to the energy released by 25 billion atomic bombs like Hiroshima. “The seas are beginning to give us back the heat they have been absorbing for the last 40 years,” he warns. Dominic Royeclimatologist responsible for the data area at the Foundation for Climate Research (FIC).
Regarding polar melting, Markus Donat, points out the consequences that the anomalies that have occurred in the Arctic and Antarctic will undoubtedly have. “Apart from accelerating the rise in sea level, it facilitates the increase in the temperature of the planet, since the white and icy surface that reflects solar radiation. That is to say: it accelerates climate change. Furthermore, that ice had been there for millennia and will not return; its loss is irreversible, unless the Earth cools substantially again.”