Taking the Temperature of Rising Seas

The world’s oceans are absorbing heat—but just how much they’re absorbing, and how quickly, are important questions for calculating the potential effects of a changing climate. In two papers published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers calculate that the upper ocean in the Southern hemisphere may be warming faster than previously thought, and that the planet’s deep oceans may not be warming as quickly. Gregory Johnson, an oceanographer with NOAA, says that better monitoring of ocean temperatures is important to developing an improved picture of climate change’s effects.