The global oceans have had a 250% increase heat, or average global zettajoules in our oceans. Here shown as a function of time collected by NASA with buoy’s
05.10.2025
Sometimes I wonder if the apple in the old testament was CO2.
There are global measurements of the effects on both atmosphere and ocean temperature when we, perhaps for other reasons, temporarily did something about it on a global scale.
We, as a species, may be smart, but we just lack wisdom.
Unchecked greed by few has put us and everything we love at risk.
It’s a valuable data set, and a pair of frightening graphs, but the OP’s title is rather confused about what is being plotted.
The charts don’t show a percentage change, they show the net absolute change in thermal energy. (The first plot shows the amount of additional heat stored in the top 2000 meters of ocean since modern recordkeeping began in 1955. The second plot shows the additional heat in the *entire* ocean, since 1992.) One zettajoule (ZJ) is 10^(21) joules.
Most of the excess heat is in the top few hundred meters of water, but there is additional energy making its way to greater depths over time.
(If the heat *weren’t* getting mixed into the water column, the excess 300 ZJ the oceans have absorbed – since 1995 – would be enough thermal energy to bring roughly the first two meters of the ocean up to the boiling point.)
It’a up 250 Zetta joules, not %.
To explain why the title is odd, increasing the energy in the oceans by 250% would mean multiplying the (Celsius) temperature of the oceans by over 3x. That is very different and much larger than the actual change in temperature of the oceans.
To put numbers to this, although I can’t easily find an average ocean temperature (for the full ocean), let’s say it is ~4 degrees (a bit higher than the 0-3 degrees of deep ocean temperature). An increase of 250% would mean the average ocean temperature is now 14 degrees Celsius. Current measurements of the ocean temperature show it has increased by a bit less than one degree in the last century, which is significant but much less than the ~10 degrees implied by a 250% increase in thermal energy
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There are global measurements of the effects on both atmosphere and ocean temperature when we, perhaps for other reasons, temporarily did something about it on a global scale.
We, as a species, may be smart, but we just lack wisdom.
Unchecked greed by few has put us and everything we love at risk.
It’s a valuable data set, and a pair of frightening graphs, but the OP’s title is rather confused about what is being plotted.
The charts don’t show a percentage change, they show the net absolute change in thermal energy. (The first plot shows the amount of additional heat stored in the top 2000 meters of ocean since modern recordkeeping began in 1955. The second plot shows the additional heat in the *entire* ocean, since 1992.) One zettajoule (ZJ) is 10^(21) joules.
Most of the excess heat is in the top few hundred meters of water, but there is additional energy making its way to greater depths over time.
(If the heat *weren’t* getting mixed into the water column, the excess 300 ZJ the oceans have absorbed – since 1995 – would be enough thermal energy to bring roughly the first two meters of the ocean up to the boiling point.)
It’a up 250 Zetta joules, not %.
To explain why the title is odd, increasing the energy in the oceans by 250% would mean multiplying the (Celsius) temperature of the oceans by over 3x. That is very different and much larger than the actual change in temperature of the oceans.
To put numbers to this, although I can’t easily find an average ocean temperature (for the full ocean), let’s say it is ~4 degrees (a bit higher than the 0-3 degrees of deep ocean temperature). An increase of 250% would mean the average ocean temperature is now 14 degrees Celsius. Current measurements of the ocean temperature show it has increased by a bit less than one degree in the last century, which is significant but much less than the ~10 degrees implied by a 250% increase in thermal energy
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