Earth's oceans absorbing most of the globe's excess heat

Record High Annual Mean
 Surface Temperatures, 2015.

Ocean temperatures have been consistently rising for at least three decades. Scientists believe that global sea surface temperatures will continue to increase over the next decade as greenhouse gases build up in the atmosphere.

According to a report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature released last week, the Southern Hemisphere has experienced intense warming over the past decade, with strong heat accumulation in the midlatitude regions of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Natural patterns such as El Niño and La Niña can have year-to-year effects on temperatures. Individual storms can also influence ocean temperatures for months or longer. But the overall temperature trends by decade reveal a backdrop of human-caused warming.

Read Tim Wallace’s story in The New York Times - “Oceans Are Absorbing Almost All of the Globe’s Excess Heat.”

Unprecedented strength will 'throw spanner in the works'

S

cientists are now certain the powerful El Nino warming of waters off the coast of South America which set in earlier this year will be the strongest for almost 20 years and will have catastrophic knock-on effects around the world including in Britain.

El Nino is still growing rapidly with a peak forecast around Christmas and latest data suggests it will match the two strongest El Ninos ever recorded in 1997/98 and 1982/83 threatening serious consequences for the UK.

El Nino, which sees ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific rise due to a change in wind direction, has been linked to colder than average winters in northern Europe.

However the almost unprecedented strength of the event now threatens to throw a spanner in the works next summer.

Read the Express story - “World faces year of catastrophic weather from most powerful El Nino and La Nina.”