A LEADING climate scientist warns that Earth could be entering “uncharted territory” as the oceans continue to heat up at an alarming pace.
Carlo Buontempo, Copernicus Climate Change Service director at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, issued the warning after global sea temperatures reached 69.8 degrees Fahrenheit on June 21. The previous record was 69.5 F, set in 2024.
“With ocean temperatures at these levels and El Niño on the horizon, we are likely to see more temperature records fall in the coming months,” Buontempo said.
“The consequences of ocean warming extend significantly to environment and climate,” said a 2023 online article on Science Direct. “It induces the expansion of the ocean, alters its stratification and currents, diminishes oxygen availability, elevates sea levels, and intensifies hurricanes and storms.”
Before the 1990s, sea surface temperature merited little attention among meteorologists. Few cared if the oceans warmed or cooled — except, perhaps, fishermen who have long been aware of the effects of temperature changes on their catch.
The concern began to grow after international climate agencies began to consolidate data showing that the oceans absorb 90 percent of Earth’s trapped heat.
In the natural scheme of things, the oceans are capable of bouncing this heat back into the atmosphere. The increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) as the world industrializes, however, disrupts this cycle.
The CO2 preserves the heat and creates a dome that reflects it back to the planet’s surface, mostly to the oceans.
In its first assessment report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was established in 1988, said the “thermal expansion” of the oceans and increased melting of glaciers “show that major part of the sea level rise appears to be related to the observed global warming.”
The IPCC at that time could only speculate on the effects of global warming on the oceans because supporting data was hard to come by. Research was practically primeval.
Satellite technology helped scientists learn more about the trapped-heat phenomenon and highlight its fallout on the planet’s climate.
Today, a grid of thousands of robotic buoys spread across the Pacific Ocean allows real-time tracking of shifts in temperature and cemented the concept of sea warming.
The Pacific Ocean is where sea temperature changes are best monitored. As the world’s biggest body of water, it influences climate events as far away as Europe. The scorching heat wave that was sweeping across the continent has been directly linked to temperature spikes in the Pacific.
A particularly strong El Niño episode is projected to intensify the warming. The result could be massive coral bleaching that could wipe out entire reef ecosystems. There is also “habitat compression,” characterized by fish kills and pelagic fish stocks migrating to cooler, deeper ocean regions.
It’s still in its early stages, but the current El Niño could be one of the strongest on record.
Sea surface temperatures are projected to shoot up to 6.8 degrees above average by December. Based on forecast models, this particular El Niño is likely to reach levels “not seen in decades.”
The Philippines has long been at the receiving end of the Pacific Ocean’s fury. Twenty or more tropical cyclones from the Northwest Pacific Basin — also known as the “typhoon nursery” — enter the Philippine area of responsibility each year, inflicting an economic toll of about P422 billion, or about 3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
Storm-activated monsoon rains also unleash floods that sometimes take weeks to subside.
As early as May, meteorologists predicted a “super El Niño” developing in the Pacific Ocean by late this year.
Only four super El Niños have been documented. All of them triggered disasters, from severe droughts in Australia and heavy flooding in South America to massive forest fires in Indonesia.
The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, or Pagasa, puts the probability of a super El Niño this year at 92 percent.
The government has reactivated Task Force El Niño, but this time, the response strategy shifts away from reactive policies toward data-driven, long-term climate adaptation and infrastructure modification.
The combined influence of a super El Niño and climate change suggests they could be more than a short-lived anomaly. It could herald a new norm, something we must start getting used to.