Comment on Give us your craziest ocean facts. 🦑
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
Global warming has a slower effect on the oceans than in air temperatures, yet we’ve passed a tipping point where many sea regions are consistently 3C warmer than pre-industrial era, and they are helping air temperatures set records too. Even since 2016, summer tropical North Atlantic ocean has been over 2C warmer than 2016. This region is also called “hurricane alley”, and ocean heat has an exponential effect on hurricane strength.
jaydev@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Okay that’s a bit too scary 😭
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
My theory on tipping points with ocean to air temperatures is that El ninos cause a step up in air temperatures now. This happened in 2015/2016, where air temperatures stayed above 2015 levels every year afterwards, even if 2016 record stayed up for a long period. 2023/2024 was another step up. Ocean and air temperatures help each other set summer records, and that ocean heat persists into fall/winter to help moderate winter air temperatures, that makes spring have a head start on new summer records, or at least keep the new el-nino set baseline, until another step up the next el-nino.