Globe's 'Missing Warming' Found in the Ocean

摘要

Greenhouse skeptics often point to the relatively modest atmospheric warming of the past few decades as evidence of the climatic impotence of greenhouse gases. Climate modelers respond that much of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases should be going into the ocean, delaying but not preventing some of the atmospheric warming. But oceanographers plumbing the ocean depths have been unable to say who was right, because records of deep-ocean temperature have been too spotty to pick out clear trends. Now, on page 2225 of this issue of Science, physical oceanographers rummaging through piles of neglected data report that they have turned up millions of old, deep-ocean temperature measurements, enough to draw up oceanic fever charts that confirm the climate models' predicted ocean warming. "We've shown that a large part of the 'missing warming' has occurred in the ocean," says oceanographer Sydney Levitus, the lead author of the paper. "The whole-Earth system has gone into a relatively warm state."