Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Settings


All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Home Arguments Software Resources Comments The Consensus Project Translations About Support

Twitter Facebook YouTube Mastodon MeWe

RSS Posts RSS Comments Email Subscribe


Climate's changed before
It's the sun
It's not bad
There is no consensus
It's cooling
Models are unreliable
Temp record is unreliable
Animals and plants can adapt
It hasn't warmed since 1998
Antarctica is gaining ice
View All Arguments...



Username
Password
New? Register here
Forgot your password?

Latest Posts

Archives

Pin It

Total Heat Content (2011 update)

Total amount of heat from global warming that has accumulated in Earth's climate system from 1962 to 2008, from Church et al. (2011) (many thanks to Neil White from the CSIRO for sharing their data).  Also see this graphic that shows the ocean heating in two layers, 0-700 meters and 700-2000 meters deep.

Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, and other greenhouse gases, absorb and trap heat energy that would otherwise be radiated to space, and since the input of energy from the sun is about constant on average, there is an energy imbalance and heat accumulates in Earth's climate system.  About 90% of the excess heat of global warming goes into heating the oceans, and only about 3% of global warming goes into heating the atmosphere (see summary here).  The ocean has such a high heat capacity relative to the land and atmosphere that relatively small exchanges of heat between the ocean and atmosphere can cause significant changes in the surface temperature, and this internal shuffling around of heat within our climate system is why the surface temperature record is such a noisy signal.


SkS Resources that use this Graphic


Images

Printable Version | Back to Graphics by Skeptical Science


Creative Commons License Skeptical Science Graphics by Skeptical Science is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


The Consensus Project Website

THE ESCALATOR

(free to republish)


© Copyright 2024 John Cook
Home | Translations | About Us | Privacy | Contact Us