There’s no way to cool the oceans for decades to come, climatologist tells CNN

The warming of the planet promoted by human activity has reached the point of generating irremediable consequences for the next generations.

Extreme events, such as the heat waves felt this summer in the Northern Hemisphere, as well as storms that have intensified in Brazil in recent years, will have to make up the agenda of governments around the world.

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The explanation comes from climatologist Francisco Aquino, professor and head of the Department of Geography at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.

“It’s inevitable. What we absolutely have to do is work with mitigation, with early warnings of extreme events and prepare cities to, as quickly as possible, face this climate change that will last for decades. It is our best strategy at the moment”, he warned in an interview with CNN Radio .

Global average sea surface temperatures reached a record high in July 2023, according to the monthly bulletin released this Tuesday (8) by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

For the month as a whole, global average sea surface temperatures were 0.51°C above the average between the years 1991 and 2020.

Decades to lose heat

Francisco Aquino explains that the oceans will need decades to lose the heat accumulated since the Industrial Revolution. The climatologist points out that the waters will continue to warm up if human activity does not stop warming the planet.

“The oceans are, in the long term – on a scale of hundreds to thousands of years – the great controllers of our planet’s climate system”, he explains. “Half a degree more energy in a body of water that covers 70% of the surface is really a very high energy store when compared to the mass of the atmosphere.”

It means that, if we think about what the climate will be like over the next 100 years, it should remain warm because the ocean will take decades, or a millennium, to decrease its temperature again

Francisco Aquino

The professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul also stated that the data collected so far indicate that 2023 should be the hottest year ever recorded.

The last month of July has already recorded the highest average global temperatures in history.

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