This shows the Earth's Energy Imbalance from a new perspective.
We have changed the rate at which heat accumulates on our planet beyond anything ever before.
We are finding out what this means together.
And we better pay attention.
Rapid changes come with great risks!
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The paper has a very insightful "agnostic" approach to Earth's Energy Imbalance of the past, by looking at differences in oxygen isotopes from a sea level (water turning to ice and vice versa) and global ocean temperature perspective.
It doesn't seem to matter very much what the heat was directed towards, if you mainly care about the absolute Earth Energy Imbalance numbers.
More in this infographic and description:
Agnostic reconstruction of Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) from δ18Obenth. Here we outline the steps taken to calculate EEI from δ18Obenth (left to right), which are described in detail in the methods. Briefly, δ18Obenth21 (left) is converted into sea level (second panel, top in yellow) and ocean temperature (second panel, bottom in green) using the assumption that the δ18Obenth signal is entirely attributed to one or the other. We then calculate the energy change associated with ice sheet buildup/melting from the sea level reconstruction (third panel, yellow) and with ocean warming/cooling from the ocean temperature reconstruction (third panel, green). EEI is then calculated by taking the time derivative of the energy changes and averaging over Earth’s surface area (panel 4). The gray lines in panels 3 and 4 show the calculated the global energy change (ΔEglobal) and EEI if we assume a constant 60/40 split of δ18Obenth between ice volume and ocean temperature changes.
The 150,000 year Earth's Energy Imbalance figure (c) from the paper:
Two months ago, I thought I'd do something ridiculous and plot the Super El Niño trend of 2015 forward for Sea Surface Temperatures, see dashed lines in red (2023) and green (2024).
I turns out that we are largely running above that..
🌊🌡️📈
The effect of El Niño on the tropical Pacific Sea Surface Temperatures is clearly visible.
Also see the North Pacific and Atlantic:
The anomaly is running off the chart again.
All this extreme ocean surface heat is about to turn into a year of shocking extreme atmospheric temperatures and (even) more extreme weather.
We might be getting a first taste of the Termination Shock from terminating part of our cooling sulphur pollution, while still increasing greenhouse gases.
Also see this long message on how the sun is currently adding to the heat.
And on how greenhouse gases keep the Earth from cooling down.
See this quick and dirty extrapolation I made last month. July surpassed this.
We might not even need a Super El Niño with the effects of IMO 2020 ship desulphurisation; strong solar activity (11-year cycle) and Hunga Tonga adding to the GHG warming.
There are still some blue parts in the oceans, but we are heading for 50% ocean heat wave coverage in the following months, as El Niño is expected to strengthen further.