How fast are the oceans warming?
Lijing Cheng 1, John Abraham 2, Zeke Hausfather 3, Kevin E. Trenberth 4
Science 11 Jan 2019:
Vol. 363, Issue 6423, pp. 128-129
DOI: 10.1126/science.aav7619
Summary
Climate change from human activities mainly results from the energy imbalance in Earth's climate system caused by rising concentrations of heat-trapping gases. About 93% of the energy imbalance accumulates in the ocean as increased ocean heat content (OHC). The ocean record of this imbalance is much less affected by internal variability and is thus better suited for detecting and attributing human influences (1) than more commonly used surface temperature records. Recent observation-based estimates show rapid warming of Earth's oceans over the past few decades (see the figure) (1, 2). This warming has contributed to increases in rainfall intensity, rising sea levels, the destruction of coral reefs, declining ocean oxygen levels, and declines in ice sheets; glaciers; and ice caps in the polar regions (3, 4). Recent estimates of observed warming resemble those seen in models, indicating that models reliably project changes in OHC.
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Past and future ocean heat content changes
Annual observational OHC changes are consistent with each other and consistent with the ensemble means of the CMIP5 models for historical simulations pre-2005 and projections from 2005–2017, giving confidence in future projections to 2100 (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5) (see the supplementary materials). The mean projected OHC changes and their 90% confidence intervals between 2081 and 2100 are shown in bars at the right. The inset depicts the detailed OHC changes after January 1990, using the monthly OHC changes updated to September 2018 [Cheng et al. (2)], along with the other annual observed values superposed.
GRAPHIC: N. CARY/SCIENCE
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From Wiki
What is RCP8.5 ??
According to Wiki
RCP = Representative Concentration Pathway
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