New study finds warming trend in oceans
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Will warmer ocean temperatures heat up the atmosphere?
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March 23, 2000
Web posted at: 11:18 p.m. EST (0418 GMT)
From staff and wire reports
WASHINGTON -- Scientists have discovered the world's largest bodies of water have grown significantly warmer, a finding they say backs up a computerized prediction of global warming.
The team of oceanographers spent seven years compiling more than 5 million ocean temperature readings taken from 1948 to 1996 in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans.
Their unprecedented study found ocean temperatures below 300 meters have risen a tenth of a degree Fahrenheit since the 1950s. Closer to the surface, oceans waters increased in temperature by 0.56 degrees.
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VIDEO
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CNN Environment Correspondent Natalie Pawelski explains what the warmer ocean temperatures may mean.
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Windows Media
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"These temperature changes may seem small, but they represent very large changes in heat content of the ocean, and this heat will eventually find it its way back to the atmosphere," warned Sydney Levitus, the principal author of the study and chief of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Ocean Climate Laboratory.
Levitus believes the study provides new evidence that computers may be on target in predicting how the Earth will heat up.
"Our results support climate modeling predictions that show increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases will have a relatively large warming influence on the Earth's atmosphere," Levitus said.
Skeptics of global warming have pointed out that the atmosphere has not yet heated up to the degree predicted by computer models. But Levitus said his study lends credence to theories that such a discrepancy, a "missing warming," could probably be found in the oceans.
The study did not pinpoint the cause of the warming trend in oceans during the past half century, but it said both natural and human-induced causes were likely.
Many scientists believe increasing temperatures of the Earth and its oceans will have economic and environmental impact.
Warming oceans mean expanding bodies of water; some scientists predict sea levels could rise 3 feet by the year 2100. Such an increase in sea levels is enough to threaten coastal cities such as New York, Miami and Washington.
Environmental Correspondent Natalie Pawelski and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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