2025 was the hottest year on record for ocean heat content.

@Speckdaene @ZLabe this is a chart of energy in the whole of the ocean down to 2000m. La Nina & El Nino only change the distribution of the energy, not the total amount. So it can make one part of the surface cooler but that means somewhere else must be equally hotter.

GhostOnTheHalfShell

@ZLabe

I used to keep marine aquariums.. a marine reef aquarium. It’s a lesson in water chemistry, temp and lighting to keep corals happy.

Everything about rising ocean temperatures set my teeth on edge because of the chemistry changes well beyond the oxygen levels

David J. Atkinson

@ZLabe I’m sure you know more about this than I do so it would be most excellent to get your insight on the question below if you are willing to comment:

The ocean has been disproportionately absorbing heat compared to the land and atmosphere. This is sometimes called the “ocean latent heat anomaly”. I once asked James Hansen ( #climate expert) how long it would take the ocean-land-atmosphere system to regain thermal equilibrium — I.e., how long would the ocean radiate heat assuming we stop CO2 emissions. He said 50 years. That seems surprisingly fast to me. (He might answer differently today since we are likely to have crossed a few tipping points now.)

What are your thoughts? How long will global atmospheric warming continue if we do everything right?

David J. Atkinson

@2qx @ZLabe Interesting question. The change may have happened much sooner and the effect took time to be measurable this way.

Kpl Klink

@ZLabe I suspect that the absorbed heat can be recovered and used to create useful wire power. Only at planetary engineering scale though. The many outfalls would be low ambient temp, slightly higher density seawater. Huh… I hadn’t thought of that type of topic in years. No magic

No unintended consequences. Just very large scale thermodynamics at work. The electrons must find a beneficial use…lol.

But, entropy always wins.