Earth’s Ocean is Warming Up

 A brand new study that has come out of Pasadena has found that the top layer in the Earth’s ocean has increased in temperature when compared to this time seventeen years ago, when the scientists first took measurements (way back in 1993).

The study did not conclude that this warming was an indicator of global warming nor a harbinger of climate change, though unsurprisingly it has been taken as being both by environmental campaigners and groups.

Equally, the study could not qualify their findings in terms of a Celsius increase – which would provide a concrete piece of information for most readers. Instead, the scientists were interested in the ability of the sea to store  heat content, which is measured in joules, and is quite difficult to define for people of  a non-technical bent.

 As a rough bench-line, the Californian boffins suggested, in a press-friendly sound-bite, that the energy now holds enough heat energy to power five hundred light bulbs for each person on earth (at a rough guess there are 6.7 billion living people floating on this piece of rock).

The scientists measured the temperature of the earth’s sea by using autonomous, floating measuring stations and also buoys dropped by ships.