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Ocean heat content (OHC) or ocean heat uptake (OHU) is the energy absorbed and stored by oceans. To calculate the ocean heat content, it is necessary to measure ocean temperature at many different locations and depths. Integrating the areal density of a change in enthalpic energy over an ocean basin or entire ocean gives the total ocean heat ...
This distributes 1.2 petawatts of heat, the equivalent to the energy flowing through one million power stations. It exchanges heat, water and carbon with the atmosphere, helping to control our ...
The atmosphere is one of the Earth's major carbon reservoirs and holds approximately 720 gigatons of carbon as of year 2000. [2] The concentration of mostly carbon-based greenhouse gases has increased dramatically since the onset of the industrial era. This makes an understanding of the carbon component of the atmosphere highly important.
By doing so, the ocean has acted as a buffer, somewhat slowing the rise in atmospheric CO 2 levels. However, this absorption of anthropogenic CO 2 has also caused acidification of the oceans. [8] [10] Climate change, a result of this excess CO 2 in the atmosphere, has increased the temperature of the ocean and atmosphere. [11]
This is because oceans lose more heat by evaporation and oceans can store a lot of heat. [72] The thermal energy in the global climate system has grown with only brief pauses since at least 1970, and over 90% of this extra energy has been stored in the ocean. [73] [74] The rest has heated the atmosphere, melted ice, and warmed the continents. [75]
The atmosphere envelops the earth and extends hundreds of kilometres from the surface. It consists mostly of inert nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%) and argon (0.9%). [4] Some trace gases in the atmosphere, such as water vapour and carbon dioxide, are the gases most important for the workings of the climate system, as they are greenhouse gases which allow visible light from the Sun to penetrate to ...
The atmospheric circulation can be viewed as a heat engine driven by the Sun's energy and whose energy sink, ultimately, is the blackness of space. The work produced by that engine causes the motion of the masses of air, and in that process it redistributes the energy absorbed by the Earth's surface near the tropics to the latitudes nearer the ...
The oceans are not just a marine habitat. They are also a workplace, a highway, a prison, a grocery store, a trash can, a cemetery — and much more. Why we need to think about the oceans differently