NEW FINDINGS: Ocean warming 4 times faster than in 1980s — and likely to accelerate

Oceans are heating up more quickly than they were 40 years ago. Why Should you care? Because warmer seas increase sea level. HOW? When water heats up, it expands in volume, a phenomenon called thermal expansion; as the oceans absorb heat from the atmosphere due to climate change, the expanding water causes the sea level to rise. 

On a Personal note: As a scientist, I've studied climate change and global warming, and I've seen firsthand the effects of a warming planet. From melting glaciers and ice caps to stronger atmospheric pressure systems, stronger El Nino and La Nina events, more intense tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons), more droughts, more flooding, sea level rise and warming ocean temperatures. In the latest study, scientists found global oceans are warming 4 times faster than in 1980s.  When oceans warm, Sea Levels Rise- and Coastal areas are more prone to flooding.

 Today's blog is about those findings.

(Flooded City Dock in downtown Annapolis. (Courtesy of Sveinn Storm))

Ocean warming 4 times faster than in 1980s — and likely to accelerate in coming decades

LIVE SCIENCE, JANUARY 30, 2025

Earth's oceans are getting warmer at an accelerating rate, researchers find — indicating that climate change is speeding up too.

The scientists found that ocean warming has more than quadrupled over the past 40 years and is likely to accelerate even faster in the future. The researchers published their findings in a new study published Tuesday (Jan. 28) in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

The rate of sea surface temperature warming has risen from 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit (0.06 degrees Celsius) per decade in the 1980s to 0.5 F (0.27 C) per decade today. The team's modeling suggests that this amount of accelerated warming will occur again in the next two decades and accelerate by an even greater margin if we don't address the causes of climate change and move away from fossil fuels, according to the study.

Study lead author Christopher Merchant, a professor in ocean and Earth observation at the University of Reading, U.K., said the oceans generally dictate the pace for global warming as a whole because they are Earth's main heat sink and absorb heat from the atmosphere. This means if ocean warming is accelerating, then it's a sign that climate change is accelerating too.

"Nature might do something different next, but on current trends, the world is warming faster than we have been used to," Merchant told Live Science in an email. "That means all the impacts are coming at us faster."

Global warming drives rising sea levels that threaten coastal communities, fuels more extreme weather and dries out land, compromising our ability to grow food. Scientists have warned that unchecked climate change will bring untold suffering to billions of people while driving a third of Earth's species to extinction.