The Pacific Just Absorbed Enough Energy to Power the World for Nearly a Decade
The BBC reported last week on a "mystery heatwave" warming the Pacific Ocean to record temperatures.
We ran the numbers. What we found should make you sit up and take notice.
The article commented that:
"The waters of the north Pacific have had their warmest summer on record, according to BBC analysis of a mysterious marine heatwave that has confounded climate scientists."
To reframe it that is - warming of roughly 50% of the Pacific to a depth of 20-100 metres by an additional 0.25°C above the already record previous high.
Water is quite hard to heat, but if we assume a depth of 10m then this is approximately 10^21 joules.
That's roughly 1,000 exajoules or eight times the ENTIRE WORLD's annual electricity consumption in a single season heatwave.
To make that real: imagine powering every home, factory, light bulb, data centre, heat pump, and EV charging station, everything electrical on the planet - FOR A FULL EIGHT YEARS.
That's what this one ocean heatwave has gained energy wise.
How we calculated our approximation
The ocean's mixed layer the surface water actively stirred by wind and waves typically extends 20 to 100 metres depending on location and season. We're using 10 metres as a conservative number for how deep marine heatwave warming actually penetrates and only half the Pacific. Even at this reduced depth and size, the energy needed is staggering.
Here's the truly unsettling part: even scaled back to just 1 metre depth, the energy would still be 10^20 joules still enough to power the entire world for nearly a year!
That's how vast the energy fluxes are in our climate system, and don't forget that is just the additional energy caused by a rise of 0.25C on top of the record 2022 heatwave.
That's a tremendous amount of trapped energy - thermodynamics big and are relentless.
Original article
BBC News - Mystery heatwave warms Pacific Ocean to new record
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3xynwwx4yo
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