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Comment by AltonWells | Hacker News Reader

It’s become abundantly apparent over the past few years that climate change is striking right now. Unfortunately it’s still in 1st gear and we are far from yet close to some truly horrendous changes in earths equilibrium. In college (4-5 years ago) I often tried to explain to friends how much energy was required to add a single degree in average temperature to the worlds oceans (it’s a fuck ton) and we’re well past that point. I’m genuinely convinced this will lead to an extinction level event where we either make it through radically changed or society as a whole catastrophically fails.

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Checking the paper, if we’re talking the past few years, it looks like this oscillation could be a big factor:

> An unusually intense PDO phase that began in about 2014 caused a reduction in cloud formation above the ocean, which also resulted in the increased absorption of incoming energy by the planet, the scientists said.

That’s one of the scariest potentials of higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Maybe it’s just a phase now but a significant reduction in clouds is actually a predicted outcome from increased heating.

It’s really not looking great.

There's an astronomical difference between the surface temperature and the temperature of the entire ocean rising by one degree.

I'm not sure what you're getting at, are you under the impression that ocean temps haven't gone up by 1c since industrialization? Because they have.

Surface ocean temperatures. It is in no way the same thing as the entire body of water raising in temperature by that same number.

Fortunately nothing important lives in the surface of the ocean, no need to panic.

That wasn't anywhere near the point. OP was talking about the amount of energy required to raise the entire ocean by one degree, which is a truly terrifying amount of energy. Fortunately, that's not what is happening.

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