A shocking new study notes that the amount of heat that has been put into the planet’s oceans from human activity over the past 70 years is the equivalent of more than 3 billion atomic bombs, Report informs.
The research, published in journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, notes that the average temperature of the world’s oceans in 2019 was 0.075 degrees Celsius higher than the 1981–2010 average. Put together; the oceans have taken in a whopping 228 sextillion Joules’ worth of heat, the scientists concluded.
“The amount of heat we have put in the world’s oceans in the past 25 years equals to 3.6 billion Hiroshima atom-bomb explosions,” said Cheng Lijing, the study’s lead author in a statement. “This measured ocean warming is irrefutable and is further proof of global warming. There are no reasonable alternatives aside from the human emissions of heat-trapping gases to explain this heating.”
Lijing added that the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan during World War II had an energy explosion equivalent to 63,000,000,000,000 Joules.
On average, that would be four bombs with the energy equivalent of the one dropped on Hiroshima getting put into the ocean every second for 25 years, but the study’s co-author, John Abraham, said the rate of change is increasing. Speaking with VICE, he said the 2019 energy level put into the oceans was the equivalent of five Hiroshima bombs every second.
