Man-Made Heat Absorbed by Oceans Has Doubled Since 1997: Study

More than 90 percent of heat energy from man-made global warming goes into the world’s oceans instead of the ground.

Pacific and Atlantic meridional sections showing upper-ocean warming for the past six decades (1955-2011). Red colors indicate a warming (positive) anomaly and blue colors indicate a cooling (negative) anomaly. (Photo: AP)    

The amount of man-made heat energy absorbed by the seas has doubled since 1997, a study released on Monday showed.

Scientists have long known that more than 90 percent of the heat energy from man-made global warming goes into the world’s oceans instead of the ground. And they’ve seen ocean heat content rise in recent years.

The world’s oceans absorbed approximately 150 zettajoules of energy from 1865 to 1997, and then absorbed about another 150 in the next 18 years, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

To put that in perspective, if you exploded one atomic bomb the size of the one that dropped on Hiroshima every second for a year, the total energy released would be 2 zettajoules. So since 1997, Earth’s oceans have absorbed man-made heat energy equivalent to a Hiroshima-style bomb being exploded every second for 75 straight years.

Most of the added heat has been trapped in the upper 2,300 feet, but with every year the deeper oceans also are absorbing more energy, the authors of the study said.