Humans have played ‘dominant role’ in the warming of the oceans over the past 50 years, says new study

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Humans have played ‘dominant role’ in the warming of the oceans over the past 50 years, says new study

June 12th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

By
Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED:

18:02 EST, 11 June 2012

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UPDATED:

18:02 EST, 11 June 2012

Humans have played ‘a dominant role’ in the warming of the oceans over the past 50 years, the latest research claims.

Only the warming of the planet caused by greenhouse gas emissions can explain the observed increase in temperature of the oceans during the 20th century, says an international team of scientists.

Their research adds to a growing body of work distinguishing the effects of natural climate cycles from changes to the environment that are the effects of human activity.

Two bottlenose dolphins: Ocean warming can have a range of adverse effects on sea life

Lead author of the study Peter Gleckler said: ‘The bottom line is that this study substantially strengthens the conclusion that most of the observed global ocean warming over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities.’

Global warming is feared to have a number of effects on the oceans.

Ongoing effects include rising sea levels due to thermal expansion and melting of glaciers and ice sheets, and warming of the ocean surface, leading to increased temperature stratification.

Other possible effects include large-scale changes in ocean circulation and a reduction in the amount of oxygen stored in the water, leading fish to drown.

Measurements showed that from the surface to a depth of 2,300ft oceans have warmed on average 0.025 degrees Celsius per decade over the past 50 years.

This sub-surface ocean warming is less than the observed warming on the Earth’s surface, primarily because of the relatively slow transfer of ocean surface warming to lower depths.

Nevertheless, because of the ocean’s enormous heat capacity, the oceans likely account for more than 90 per cent of the heat accumulated over the past 50 years as the Earth has warmed, scientists found.

In this study the team, including observational experts from the U.S., Japan and Australia, examined the causes of ocean warming using improved observational estimates.

They also used results from a large multi-model archive of control simulations (that don’t include the effects of humans, but do include natural variability).

They then compared these to simulations that included the effects of the observed increase in greenhouse gases over the 20th century.

Glacier at Neko Harbor, Antarctica: The warming of the oceans is contributing to the loss of the ice caps and the gradual raising of global sea levels

‘By using a “multi-model ensemble,” we were better able to characterize decadal-scale natural climate variability, which is a critical aspect of the detection and attribution of a human-caused climate change signal,’ Mr Gleckler, of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said.

‘What we are trying to do is determine if the observed warming pattern can be explained by natural variability alone.

‘Although we performed a series of tests to account for the impact of various uncertainties, we found no evidence that simultaneous warming of the upper layers of all seven seas can be explained by natural climate variability alone.

‘Humans have played a dominant role.’

Report co-author Dr John Church told Australia’s ABC News AM that ‘Natural variability could only explain 10 percent, or thereabouts, of the observed change.’

Oceanography expert Nathan Bindoff told ABC: ‘This paper’s important because, for the first time, we can actually say that we’re virtually certain that the oceans have warmed, and that warming is caused not by natural processes, but by rising greenhouse gases primarily.’

He added: ‘We did it. No matter how you look at it, we did it. That’s it.’

The study is published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Climate Change.