Global warming's relationship to solar

Climate change has never felt like such a big story before this summer. It isn’t just the recent reports of fatalities due to excessive heat. The earth's temperature is steadily rising, and it isn't just in the air around us. Studies show that more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions has been absorbed into our oceans. Those oceans cover two-thirds of our planet's surface and the ocean ’s temperature is rising,  and it tells a story of how humans are changing the planet in a negative way. This accrued heat is "really the memory of past climate change," said Kevin Trenberth, the head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and co-author of a new paper on ocean warming. The total amount of warming on our planet is significant but it's also the rapidity of the warming that frightens scientists. The rate at which the oceans are heating up has nearly doubled since 1992, and that heat is reaching progressively deeper waters, according to a recent study. At the same time, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been steadily rising. Much of the air pollution on the planet comes from the largest urban areas. The smog problems in Chinese cities is legendary and there are some Indian cities that are almost as bad. In America, Los Angeles was the same way prior to the enactment of clean air standards that are currently being undermined by the Trump administration. There remains a battle between global warming deniers and the truth. Man-made climate change is caused by the burning of fossil fuels and anyone denying this is a danger to your health and eventually your wallet too.

Climate scientists have reached consensus on global warming

Climate scientists have consistently reported that the accumulation of heat in the oceans is the strongest evidence of how fast earth is warming. This is due to heat-trapping gases emitted by the burning of fossil fuels. Oceans have an enormous capability to retain heat. So ocean temperatures, unlike temperatures on land, are slow to fluctuate from natural forces, such as El Niño/La Niña patterns or volcanic eruptions. As night falls on land, air temperatures fall as well. But in the oceans, temperatures vary little. This makes it easier to evaluate the influence of human-caused global warming from other possible causes of increasing ocean heat. According to research by Trenberth and Lijing Cheng, of the Institute for Atmospheric Physics in Beijing, the heat storage in the oceans during 2015 and 2016 amounted to a stunning force: an increase of 30.4 X 1022 joules of energy roiling Earth's systems since 1960. The overload is helping throw off Earth's energy balance, needed for the climate to be mostly stable. Put another way: The excess energy amassed in the oceans since 1992 is roughly equivalent to 2,000 times U.S. electricity generation during the past decade, the researchers explained.

Ocean temperatures rising

Ocean temperatures have been rising about 0.12 degrees Celsius per decade on average over the past five decades. The higher temperatures are driving marine species toward the poles in search of livable habitats, bleaching coral reefs, and causing severe repercussions on fisheries and aquacultures. They also contribute to more frequent and powerful extreme weather events. In the three back-to-back deadly hurricanes of 2017—Harvey, Irma, and Maria—warmer waters played a role in worsening the storms in all three cases.

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