Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Earth

Record Ocean Heat is Intensifying Climate Disasters, Data Shows (theguardian.com) 61

Posted by msmash from the grave-concerns dept.
The world's oceans absorbed yet another record-breaking amount of heat in 2025, continuing an almost unbroken streak of annual records since the start of the millennium and fueling increasingly extreme weather events around the globe. More than 90% of the heat trapped by humanity's carbon emissions ends up in the oceans, making ocean heat content one of the clearest indicators of the climate crisis's trajectory.

The analysis, published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, drew on temperature data collected across the oceans and collated by three independent research teams. The measurements cover the top 2,000 meters of ocean depth, where most heat absorption occurs. The amount of heat absorbed is equivalent to more than 200 times the total electricity used by humans worldwide.

This extra thermal energy intensifies hurricanes and typhoons, produces heavier rainfall and greater flooding, and results in longer marine heatwaves that decimate ocean life. The oceans are likely at their hottest in at least 1,000 years and heating faster than at any point in the past 2,000 years.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Record Ocean Heat is Intensifying Climate Disasters, Data Shows More

Record Ocean Heat is Intensifying Climate Disasters, Data Shows

Comments Filter:

  • Up next (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ZiggyZiggyZig ( 5490070 ) on Friday January 09, 2026 @10:27AM (#65912303)

    Trump's government announces defunding of the NOAA.

  • Because the US Eastern Seaboard and Gulf region had one of the milder hurricane seasons this year than usual [al.com]:

    "There were two tropical storms in the southern Gulf’s Bay of Campeche in 2025, but this was the first year since 2014 that there was not a tropical threat to the northern Gulf Coast, according to NOAA data. It was also the first time in a decade that a hurricane did not make landfall in the United States at all, according to NOAA."

    The linked article notes of the major hurricanes that formed th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Targon ( 17348 )

      If you look at the water temperatures, things would indicate that WHEN we get hurricanes, they will be worse, because the water temperatures have been increasing overall. So, good luck doesn't mean that when hurricanes hit they won't do as much damage. Without some of the factors that prevented hurricanes from hitting, things have been ripe for massive hurricanes. The idea of potentially adding a category 6 hurricane rating due to how powerful the storms have been over the past few years(even if the U

  • "Look! A snowball! Obviously global warming is a myth!" I forget which of our congresscritters did that trick, but I hope he doesn't get re-elected.

    • So it's your underlying claim that thermodynamics doesn't exist and energy just sort of disappears.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Targon ( 17348 )

        It's possible that that is what was meant, but many people in the US Congress(House of Representatives), are CLUELESS, to the point where having very cold temperatures in the winter means that there is no actual global warming trend or threat.

  • In 2025 no hurricanes hit the US (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) last week announced that, as of November 30, the official end of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, this year was historic. “For the first time in a decade, not a single hurricane struck the U.S. this season, and that was a much needed break,” said Neil Jacobs, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. He added that a tropical storm did cause “damage and casualties in the Carolinas, dista

    • All the data indicates a problem is on the horizon. But let's wait until something happens. That way it will be far more expensive to deal with.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by MrNJ ( 955045 )

        The problem has been on the horizon for the last 50 years or so.
        At this point it's not a "horizon". It's a mirage. As in not happening.

        • Send any time with these claim change deniers and they'll tell you that coral reef die offs are nothing to worry about or that they are caused by chemicals. The will tell you measurable temperature change is because old records are inaccurate. They have a flimsy excuse for everything.

  • Link is missing, headline is misleading (Score:5, Informative)

    by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Friday January 09, 2026 @11:53AM (#65912424) Homepage

    Strange that the actual news part of this article is "The world's oceans absorbed yet another record-breaking amount of heat in 2025" but there is no link at all to this, only a link two paragraphs down to a Guardian article, which states (with no references) that this will be "fueling increasingly extreme weather events."
    The actual scientific article [springer.com] (in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences) is not about extreme weather events.

    For some better popular science discussion, try https://scitechdaily.com/earth... [scitechdaily.com] or https://phys.org/news/2026-01-... [phys.org]

  • I think the bigger problem (Score:3)

    by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Friday January 09, 2026 @12:49PM (#65912576)

    In the northern hemisphere is the sea ice extent. It used to provide a big cold air sink that keep cold air up in the Arctic and also make things colder by reflecting sunlight in the Arctic. Now we have more solar warming and less ice. The polar vortex is warmer, more chaotic and it sends air down in different places. The winter where I am has been nonexistant for the first half. It used to get down to -20C, now it barely freezes.

    • "The winter where I am has been nonexistant for the first half."

      Did the scientists rely on anecdata too?

  • > The oceans are likely at their hottest in at least 1,000 years

    So it was at least as hot or hotter 1,000 years ago long before the industrial age

    > heating faster than at any point in the past 2,000 years.

    So it was heating as fast or faster 2,000 years ago long before the industrial age

    This is the problem - they are looking at data that covers only the tiniest fraction of the historical record and extrapolating grand predictions of doom from it.

    We all know the earths climate is in constant flux, often

    • > The oceans are likely at their hottest in at least 1,000 years

      So it was at least as hot or hotter 1,000 years ago long before the industrial age

      No.

      You switched the "at least" from "at least 1,000 years" to "at least as hot or hotter." No statement was made that the oceans were were hotter more than 1,000 years before now.

      ...
      We all know the earths climate is in constant flux, often wildly so.

      Not sure which "wild" flux in climate you're referring to. The main ones would be the glacial advances and retreats, which occur on the time scale of the Milankovitch variations, which occur on time scales of tens to hundreds of thousands of years. The current warming is ~a thousand times faster.

      It continues to be the height of hubris to believe we are its primary driver when these swings have been happening eons before we existed.

      We measure the energy input. We mea

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Sethra ( 55187 )

        You're completely missing the point. We have no data from the past that can tell us if current trends are common, rare, or unprecedented. Any doomsayer extrapolations have no basis in fact.

        There is no data that suggests that spending $275T (that's Trillion with a T) over the next decade will have any effect at all except to enrich certain entities and strip away constructive progress on other more pressing issues.

        • You're completely missing the point.

          And you are missing the point. You wrote something that did not make logical sense.

          We have no data from the past that can tell us if current trends are common, rare, or unprecedented.

          But we have very very good data about today. We measure all the parameters. We know what is causing the current warming because we have measurements of all the forcing factors. The current warming is due to anthropogenic forcing, primarily the carbon dioxide we are putting in the atmosphere. We measure the infrared properties of this. This is not a guess, not a hypothesis-- this is measured data. The very article we are discu

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Sethra ( 55187 )

            > you change the subject.

            It's right there in my original post. The fact that YOU chose to ignore it does not mean that my reiterating it is changing the subject.

            > But we have very very good data about today.

            Which is useless for making meaningful predictions of how climate has behaved in the billions of years this planet has been around, all of which, minus the tiniest fraction, occurred before humans walked the earth. With all that "very very good data" you'd still be hard pressed to find a meteorol

            • > you change the subject.
              It's right there in my original post.

              Just to verify, you do understand that the argument "In my estimation it would be too expensive to deal with the problem, therefore the science must be wrong" is an argument that makes no sense?

              > But we have very very good data about today.
              Which is useless for making meaningful predictions of how climate has behaved in the billions of years this planet has been around,

              We're not trying to predict the climate a billion years ago. We're predicting the changes in climate today, a time in which we have very good data.

              all of which, minus the tiniest fraction, occurred before humans walked the earth. With all that "very very good data" you'd still be hard pressed to find a meteorologist who can accurately predict the weather for next week

              You're on slashdot how long, and you still don't understand that weather is not climate?

              Averages are always easier to predict. It's the difference between predicting the a

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Sethra ( 55187 )

                > Since the 275 trillion dollar estimate you gave previously was completely made up

                https://www.reuters.com/market... [reuters.com]

                I'll just assume you apologized for your comment and hope you have a nice day free of irrational fears.

                • Reuters decided to pimp a press release from McKinsey & Company? McKinsey works for the oil companies-- mostly Saudi Aramco, BP, and Shell, but others as well. I wouldn't trust any estimates from them; their corporate goal is to keep oil sales high.

                  Regardless, however, the number is irrelevant, regardless of who made it up. My question still stands:
                  you do understand that the argument "it would be too expensive to deal with the problem, therefore the science must be wrong" is an argument that makes no se

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Sethra ( 55187 )

                    > the number is irrelevant, regardless of who made it up

                    This is the stance of virtually every climate alarmist - "you are a liar. Oh, you have a citation - they're liars too!" It''s so tiresome.

                    > "it would be too expensive to deal with the problem, therefore the science must be wrong"

                    My assertion is the expense is more damaging than than solution and the solution is a gamble at best. I have repeatedly stated that such immense sums of money are better spent virtually anywhere else.

                    If you have $5,00

                    • > the number is irrelevant, regardless of who made it up

                      This is the stance of virtually every climate alarmist - "you are a liar. Oh, you have a citation - they're liars too!" It''s so tiresome.

                      You literally can't see a difference between "it doesn't matter what this number is" and "this number is wrong"?

                      It doesn't matter what that number is, because it has nothing to do with whether the science is right.

                      > "it would be too expensive to deal with the problem, therefore the science must be wrong"
                      My assertion is the expense is more damaging than than solution and the solution is a gamble at best.

                      That isn't the statement I was addressing. My comments were dealing with the fact that you have been attacking the science, throwing out misinformation and misconceptions.

                      Briefly summarizing: "The oceans are likely at their hottest in at least 1,000 years" does not imply "So it was at least as hot

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Sethra ( 55187 )

                      Alright my friend, if we live to 2050 one of us can return and say "I told you so"

                      Until that day, have a good one.

    • There are other more pressing issues in the world that need our attention right now.

      You must be Sethra the younger. Shouldn't you be imprisoned somewhere doing menial tasks instead of downplaying the threat to literally every single system we depend upon?

  • The Guardian, clearly the last bastion of truth journalistic integrity.

Slashdot Top Deals

We cannot command nature except by obeying her. -- Sir Francis Bacon

Close