Geophysical Research Letters: Earth has attained an alarming new pace of heat, data suggests

A recent research indicates that during only 14 years the quantity of heat retained by the Earth, the ocean and the atmosphere quadrupled.

Researchers were looking at NASA satellite data to see how much of the Sun's radiation entered the Earth's atmosphere and how much was reflected back into space to figure out how much heat the Earth is retaining. The researchers have compared this to data from NOAA boots that have been observing ocean temperatures — which gives you a sense of how much heat is absorbed.

The discrepancy between Earth's absorption of heat and space reflected in the quantity is referred to as energy imbalances. In this example, the heat absorbed by the Earth was increasing from 2005 to 2019. Their findings have been published this week in Geophysical Research Letters.

The researchers believe that several distinct variables explain why Earth maintains hotter conditions. One is climate change induced by people. The more greenhouse gases we generate, the more heat they trap, among other issues. When you consider that growing heat also melts ice and snow, it gets worse. Ice and snow can contribute towards the planet reinforcing heat in space – the land and oceans underneath can absorb more heat by disappearing.

It is more than probable that the combination of climate change and these natural movements has so greatly influenced Earth's energy balance, says Loeb. "And they are both warming throughout the course of this period, leading to a quite substantial change in the energy imbalance of the earth. It is unparalleled in scale."

Fourteen years are not lengthy compared to Earth's long history of the climate — researchers are required to collect data in order to learn more how this fits into the entire imbalance of energy on the planet.

June 19, 2021