According to new research, up to 95 percent of Earth's ocean surface would be altered by the end of the century unless humanity reduces carbon emissions.
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The thinner this mixed layer becomes, the easier the ocean gets warmer. The new work could explain recent extreme marine heatwaves and point at a future of more frequent and destructive ocean warming events as global temperatures continue to climb. Marine heatwaves will be more intense and happen more often in the future, said Dillon Amaya, a CIRES Visiting Fellow and lead author on the study out this week in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society s Explaining Extreme Events. And we now understand the mechanics of why. When the mixed layer is thin, it takes less heat to warm the ocean more.