Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Oct 30, 2025

Recent, rapid ocean warming ahead of El Niño alarms scientists

Recent, rapid ocean warming ahead of El Niño alarms scientists

A recent, rapid heating of the world’s oceans has alarmed scientists concerned that it will add to global warming.
This month, the global sea surface hit a new record high temperature. It has never warmed this much, this quickly. Scientists don’t fully understand why this has happened.


But they worry that, combined with other weather events, the world’s temperature could reach a concerning new level by the end of next year.

Experts believe that a strong El Niño weather event — a weather system that heats the ocean — will also set in over the next months.

Warmer oceans can kill off marine life, lead to more extreme weather and raise sea levels. They are also less efficient at absorbing planet-warming greenhouse gases.

Almost all the world’s sea surface has warmed, with especially strong warming in the Arctic of more than two degrees Celsius in places. There is a localized area of cooling southeast of Greenland.

An important new study, published last week with little fanfare, highlights a worrying development.

Over the past 15 years, the Earth has accumulated almost as much heat as it did in the previous 45 years, with most of the extra energy going into the oceans.

This is having real world consequences — not only did the overall temperature of the oceans hit a new record in April this year, in some regions the difference from the long term was enormous.

In March, sea surface temperatures off the east coast of North America were as much as 13.8C higher than the 1981-2011 average.

“It’s not yet well established, why such a rapid change, and such a huge change is happening,” said Karina Von Schuckmann, the lead author of the new study and an oceanographer at the research group Mercator Ocean International.

“We have doubled the heat in the climate system the last 15 years, I don’t want to say this is climate change, or natural variability or a mixture of both, we don’t know yet. But we do see this change.”

One factor that could be influencing the level of heat going into the oceans is, interestingly, a reduction in pollution from shipping.

In 2020, the International Maritime Organization put in place a regulation to reduce the sulfur content of fuel burned by ships.

This has had a rapid impact, reducing the amount of aerosol particles released into the atmosphere.

But aerosols that dirty the air also help reflect heat back into space — removing them may have caused more heat to enter the waters.

Another important factor that is worrying scientists is the weather phenomenon known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation.

For the past three years this naturally occurring event has been in a cooler phase called La Niña, and has helped keep global temperatures in check.

But researchers now believe that a strong El Niño is forming which will have significant implications for the world.

“The Australian Bureau’s model does go strongly for a strong El Niño. And it has been trending that way and all the climate models have been trending that way to a stronger event,” said Hugh McDowell from Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology.

McDowell cautioned that predictions at this point of the year are less reliable. Other researchers are more bullish.

A coastal El Niño has already developed off the shores of Peru and Ecuador and experts believe a fully formed event will follow with implications for global temperatures.

“If a new El Niño new comes on top of it, we will probably have additional global warming of 0.2-0.25C,” said Dr. Josef Ludescher, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research.

Media caption,

“The impact on the temperature is relaxed a few months after the peak of any El Niño so this is why 2024 will be probably the warmest on record.”

“And we may, we will be close to 1.5C days and perhaps we will temporarily go over.”

El Niño will likely disrupt weather patterns around the world, weaken the monsoon and threaten more wildfires in Australia.

But there are more fundamental worries that as more heat goes into the ocean, the waters may be less able to store excess energy.

And there are concerns that the heat contained in the oceans won’t stay there. Several scientists contacted for this story were reluctant to go on the record about the implications.

One spoke of being “extremely worried and completely stressed.”

Some research has shown that world is warming in jumps, where little changes over a period of years and then there are sudden leaps upwards, like steps on a stairs, closely linked to the development of El Niño.

There is some hope in this scenario, according to Karina Von Schuckmann. Temperatures may come down again after the El Niño subsides.

“We still have a window where we can act and we should use this to reduce the consequences,” she told BBC News.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×