Scientists "Puzzled and Concerned"

Draft script:

From NBC News comes a story on 15 March 2024 titled 12 months of record ocean heat has scientists puzzled and concerned. The subhead is “The huge temperature anomaly – which climate change alone is unlikely to explain – could be a bad sign for hurricane season.”

Here’s the lede: “Every day for the last 12 months, the world’s sea surface temperatures have broken records.” The next sentence: “Ocean scientists are growing increasingly concerned.”

A senior research associate at the University of Miami is quoted in the NBC News article: “It’s not just an entire year of record-breaking ocean temperatures, but it’s the margin it’s breaking them by – it’s not even close to what the previous record was. That’s what’s raising the eyebrows of a lot of people.”

The article explains that average sea surface temperatures are about 0.8 C higher than they were during the 1982-2011 baseline. That’s about one-and-a-quarter degrees Fahrenheit. The 1982-2011 baseline is ludicrous, as is customary for articles from the corporate media.

The buried lede is found in the fifth paragraph: “Human-caused climate change is likely playing a role, researchers said, but is probably not the only factor. Climate models predict a steady rise in sea surface temperatures, but not this quickly, and ocean surface temperatures also fluctuate and can be affected by natural climate variability, including patterns such as El Niño and La Niña.”

Perhaps those climate models that “predict a steady rise in sea surface temperatures” fail to account for the fact that Earth is warming very rapidly. After all, the designed-to-fail Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change included this statement in its 8 October 2018 report, Global Warming of 1.5 Degrees: “These global-level rates of human-driven change far exceed the rates of change driven by geophysical or biosphere forces that have altered the Earth System trajectory in the past … even abrupt geophysical events do not approach current rates of human-driven change.” The IPCC report cites two peer-reviewed papers in reaching this conclusion. In other words, the IPCC reported that Earth is warming at an exceptional rate more than five-and-a-half years ago.

The most ridiculous paragraph is the seventh in the article, after only two advertisements. It quotes a Professor who studies ocean temperatures: “I pray we’re having a once-in-a-lifetime year of hot sea surface temperatures, but I do fear there may be something else going on that is causing a long-term change in sea surface temperatures we hadn’t predicted. All bets are off now, this is something that is so unusual, it’s challenging our past expectations.”

The prayers and fears expressed by the Professor are beyond bizarre. As I have indicated previously in this space, the process of science is designed to eliminate personal emotions such as fear. The comment about prayer is ridiculously out of place in an article allegedly rooted in science.

Speaking of ridiculously out of place, I will read the next paragraph in its entirety: “If ocean temperatures continue to break records, that could bleach corals, generate more intense and fast-developing hurricanes, drive coastal temperatures up and make extreme precipitation more likely – events scientists already observed in 2023.”

Of course, “ocean temperatures [will] continue to break records.” After all, Earth is in the midst of a rate of environmental change unprecedented in planetary history.

Of course, corals will continue to be bleached. We are in the midst of the fifth worldwide bleaching event in the past eight years, as I have reported previously in this space.

Of course, this will “generate more intense and fast-developing hurricanes.” This rapidly warming planet is producing more and stronger hurricanes, as I reported previously in this space.

Of course, this will “drive coastal temperatures up.” Coasts will not be spared the rapid planetary heating already underway.

Of course, this will “make extreme precipitation more likely.” A warmer Earth is a wetter Earth, after all. Again, this is common knowledge.

According to the story at NBC News, the senior research associate and the Professor both acknowledged “that it’s possible that an ocean system has crossed a critical threshold because of global warming.” Really? It’s possible? Somebody needs to take a look at that IPCC report from more than five-and-a-half years ago.

The article at NBC News includes a statement about the aerosol masking effect: “… changes to maritime shipping regulations may have reduced sulfur pollution in ship exhaust, ultimately reducing cloud cover and allowing the oceans to absorb more energy.” The senior research associate, according to the story at NBC News, is skeptical of the idea. After more than two dozen peer-reviewed papers on the topic dating back to 1929, the senior research associate is allowed to promulgate skepticism about aerosol masking in a major corporate media outlet.

The bottom line comes from the senior research associate: “We’re kind of all observing something strange happening. At some point, someone will come up with an answer, but I haven’t seen that answer yet.”

I’m not a climate scientist. I’m not a marine biologist. I still think I know what that answer is: Earth is in the midst of abrupt, irreversible climate change. There, was that so difficult?