2024 Ocean Temps Hit All-Time High: Report

Ocean warming accounts for more than 1/3 of the global mean sea level rise through thermal expansion and also exacerbates extreme weather events

- Jayashree Nandi

A new paper has found ocean warming in 2024 has led to new record high temperatures. The ocean is the hottest it has ever been recorded by humans, not only at the surface temperature but also for the upper 2000 meters, the paper has found.

The ocean dictates our weather patterns by transferring heat and moisture into the atmosphere. The ocean also controls how fast climate change happens and that is why extreme warming of the oceans may have led to record air temperatures which triggered disasters last year, the paper has suggested.

The paper, published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences on January 8, said oceans with record high temperatures included the Indian Ocean, tropical Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea, North Atlantic, North Pacific, and Southern Ocean. The team had investigated 8 ocean regions globally.