Dr. Karina von Schuckmann, renowned oceanographer and IPCC expert, points to the Earth’s energy imbalance as the main cause of the rapid warming of the oceans.
“The ocean can be considered the planetary warming sentinel. When we measure the ocean by taking all temperature measurements from the surface to the deepest layers, we can calculate the so-called ocean heat content. And we see globally that the ocean is warming. This tells us that the Earth is out of energy balance.”
“That is, we receive energy from the sun and, normally, this amount of energy after a certain time – there are many interactions, evaporation, precipitation, reflection, absorption– but then this heat leaves the system, and we normally reach a quasi-equilibrium of energy. But because we have greenhouse gases in the system, there is less energy leaving the system. And so we have an imbalance at the top of the atmosphere. So more comes in and less goes out. And this leads to a heat accumulation in the climate system.”
“So this heat is absorbed by climate components. And the ocean is an important part. About 90% of this excess heat from global emissions is stored in the oceanand that leads us to a warming of the ocean. But it also tells us that the Earth is out of energy balance.”
