The world’s oceans are likely the hottest they’ve been for 1,000 years and are set to bring about even wilder weather events, new analysis has found.
An international team of scientists said the planet’s waters were the warmest ever recorded in 2022, posing a massive threat to coral reefs and marine life around the world.
And with the oceans thought to be at their hottest levels in a millennium - and heating faster than any time in the last 2,000 years - it raises the risk of more intense hurricanes, typhoons, rainfall and flooding.
More than 90 per cent of excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases is absorbed in the oceans, with temperatures rising steadily since 1958 before shooting up quicker post-1990.
Hotter oceans help supercharge extreme weather and lead to more moisture in the air, bringing more intense rains and flooding. Water also expands when it warms, pushing up sea levels.
The analysis, published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, said: “The Earth’s energy and water cycles have been profoundly altered due to the emission of greenhouse gases by human activities, driving pervasive changes in Earth’s climate system.
“There are increasing occurrences of record-shattering heatwaves and droughts in the northern hemisphere, consistent with intensive ocean warming in the mid-latitude Pacific and Atlantic oceans.”
Study team member Prof John Abraham, of the University of St Thomas in Minnesota, said: “If you want to measure global warming, you want to measure where the warming goes, and over 90 per cent goes into the oceans.
“Measuring the oceans is the most accurate way of determining how out of balance our planet is.
“We are getting more extreme weather because of the warming oceans and that has tremendous consequences all around the world.”
Prof Michael Mann, at the University of Pennsylvania, who also worked on the report, added: “Warmer oceans mean there is more potential for bigger precipitation events, like we’ve seen this past year in Europe, Australia, and currently on the west coast of the US.”
It comes as Scotland also saw weather extremes last year - with July’s record-breaking heatwave, the coldest December in a decade and severe flooding and heavy rainfall in the south of Scotland at the tail-end of the year.
The floods led to widespread travel chaos in the run-up to Hogmanay, including landslips and major railway disruption.
Research earlier this week by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed many extreme weather events in 2022 were made more likely and more intense by the climate crisis, such as devastating floods in Chad, Niger and Nigeria.
And we previously told how February’s Storm Eunice - which battered Scotland and the UK with blizzard conditions and 90mph winds - was listed as one of the top climate-linked weather disasters of last year.
The research used temperature data collected across the oceans and combined separate studies by Chinese and US teams to calculate the heat content of the top 2,000 metres.
Scientists say ocean warming, and its impacts on extreme weather and marine life, will increase until the world hits net zero emissions.
Rising temperatures cause coral reefs to “bleach”, expelling algae that means the reefs - home to millions of species of sea life - eventually die.
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