Any impartial observer can easily see that we are in a planetary climate emergency. The only people who continue to deny it are capitalists, fascists, and those who support them.
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The surge in ocean temperatures to record-breaking levels in 2023 and 2024 is a sign that the pace of climate change has accelerated, say researchers.

Global ocean temperatures hit record highs for 450 days straight in 2023 and early 2024. Although some of the extra heat can be explained by an El Niño weather pattern emerging in the Pacific Ocean, about 44% of the record warmth is due to the world’s oceans absorbing heat from the sun at an accelerating rate, according to Chris Merchant at the University of Reading, UK.

Merchant and his colleagues used satellite data to analyse ocean warming over the past four decades, concluding that the rate of warming has more than quadrupled since 1985.

The team says this rapid acceleration is down to a sharp change in Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI), a measure of how much heat is being trapped in the atmosphere. EEI has roughly doubled since 2010, causing the oceans to soak up much more heat now than they used to.

Based on their analysis, Merchant and his team predict that the rate of ocean warming could continue to increase rapidly in the coming decades. “If the EEI trend extrapolates into the future, then we can expect as much warming in the next 20 years as we have had in the last 40 years, which is quite a marked acceleration,” says Merchant.
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FULL STORY -- newscientist.com/article/24656…

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