The amount of excess heat buried in the planet’s oceans, a strong marker of the climate emergency, reached a record high in 2022, reflecting more stored heat energy than in any year since reliable measurements were available in the late 1950s, a group of scientists reported last Wednesday.
That eclipses the ocean heat record set in 2021 – which eclipsed the record set in 2020, which eclipsed the one set in 2019. And it helps to explain a seemingly ever-escalating pattern of extreme weather events of late, many of which are drawing extra fuel from the energy they pull from the oceans.
