Oceans are warming

Morris Kaufman’s May 18 letter, “Climate change is natural,” states a common climate change skeptic position that because atmospheric temperatures have been stable since about 2000 there is no global warming. This totally ignores the rising heat content of the global oceans.

In an article on the discovery of global warming on the American Institute of Physics website, the authors point out that the added heat content of the upper layers of the oceans provides the most comprehensive measure of the warming of the planet. In addition, they point out the pause in warming since 2000 of surface temperatures is not seen in the added heat content of the upper ocean layers. Dramatic evidence of this can be seen at the National Oceanographic Data Center website.

As the global oceans have warmed, they have picked up and stored carbon dioxide. This has increased their acidity and is having a harmful effect on many ocean ecologies. Destruction of coral reefs, food sources and fish replaced with jellyfish, not to mention the recently detected irreversible melting of Antarctic glaciers, are some of the impacts of this dramatic ocean warming.

Bob Webb

Hayden, Idaho