More than 70 % of the earth’s surface is covered by the oceans.
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Water is much better than land or air in storing heat energy, so 93% of the stored heat energy from the sun is stored in the oceans.
The oceans are the major factor in controlling the climate that occurs on land, so the climate readings from the oceans are more important than the more familiar land based readings we all constantly discuss. Scientists worldwide have a network of almost 4000 floats drifting around the world to monitor the condition of the oceans.
Each of these “Argo” floats drifts at a depth of 1000 metres and regularly dives to 2000 metres then goes to the surface to radio its huge number of continuous readings, then dives back to 1000 metres to start the cycle again.
On January 11 this year these scientist released a report which showed that the results from this network of floats show that the oceans are heating up much faster than was previously thought.
The oceans are acting like giant hot water bottles wrapped around the land masses and storing this extra heat.
If this all sounds like science fiction then this material is readily available online by typing “ocean warming faster”, or something similar, into your search engine.
This alarming announcement is the result of billions of readings being processed by super-computers, but has received very little publicity.
All the usual totally unqualified loud voices in the radio and press and politicians will offer their own opinions of what is really occurring, which have absolutely no scientific basis.
I know a number of people who declare that they are not yet decided if the climate change problem is real, without realising that it is impossible for we humans on land to make such a decision.
We have to accept the scientific facts of what is occurring now. Criticising predictions of what will occur in the future has absolutely nothing to do with the climate problem and shows a complete lack of understanding in the real situation.
Kevin Wilkinson
Cockatoo Place
Arakoon