You’ve probably heard that weather is getting more extreme and that this is in part because accumulating greenhouse gases have caused the air at earth’s surface to warm by an average of 0.8 degrees celsius over the last century. But how could a barely perceptible rise in air temperature lead to such crazy changes in weather?
Well, that air temperature rise actually only amounts to 1% of the extra energy absorbed by earth’s atmosphere over the last century – a few percent has been absorbed by land and almost all the rest has been soaked up by the oceans. That increase in ocean heat content is the energy equivalent of an atomic bomb exploding every second for the last 100 years. And THAT matters because heat stored in the oceans has a big impact on the weather.