World oceans getting warmer despite reduced carbon emissions: Report

BEIJING: As stated in a study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences journal, despite recording reductions in carbon emissions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the oceans of the world are recorded to be warmest in 2020. The study was conducted by 20 scientists from 13 institutes from China, the United States of America (USA) and Italy.

Cheng Lijing, Lead author of the study, said that ocean heating is an important indicator for measuring the climate change as almost 90 per cent of the global heat ends up in the oceans. He added that delayed response towards global warming will make the ocean warming a trend for decades at least. The study also found that over the past eight decades, the world oceans have consistently been warmer each decade. Increasing ocean temperature converts in the form of more typhoons, hurricanes and extreme rainfall.

In addition to this, researchers also examined the level of salinity of oceans and found that areas with high salinity had increased in salinity and vice versa for the areas with lower salinity. Cheng said that any activities or initiatives to address the global climate change must be taken hand in hand with the understanding of oceans which have already absorbed a lot of heat and will continue to get warmer with time.