Friday, May 22, 2015

Another Large Jump in Ocean Warming

Ocean heat content data for the first 3 months of 2015 has been posted, and it again shows very large jumps upward:


Plotted as anomalies, it's clear the top half of the ocean, the 0-to-2000 meter region, is gaining heat at an accelerating rate:


with an acceleration of 1.4 ± 0.5 ZJ/yr2 (2σ), or 0.08 ± 0.03 W/m2 per year averaged over the globe.

(ZJ = zettajoule = 1021 J.) Using the quadratic fit, the present rate of change of this region's OHC is 17 ZJ/yr, which is 1.0 W/m2.

A goodness-of-fit measure between the 2nd-order fit (i.e. with acceleration) and 1st-order fit (assuming no acceleration) continues to increase:


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