The rise of the sea temperature

And the most amazing thing was the scientists discovered that the sea temperature was about three degrees warmer than had previously been documented. Now three degrees doesn’t sound too much, you know if you are in the shower and you want the three degrees, you know you just turn the knob a bit. But if you think about it, if you are in the bath and you want the bath to be three degrees warmer, well you have to run the tap for quite a long time, there is a lot of energy to warm up a bath by three degrees.

Now imagine you want to warm up a swimming pool by three degrees, well that is going to take an enormous amount of energy. Now what we’re talking about is a body of water about three times the size of New Zealand, and for that to be up three degrees is hugely significant, and very scary in some ways, because one of the consequences isn’t just the danger to the polar bears, it’s all that increase in warmth is melting that ice. Now ice, as I’m sure you will know if you are fifth and sixth year science students, is pure water. Now this is pure water in a salty sea, so it’s different to the salty water that’s around it, it’s colder, it’s denser. And when it mixes in with it, it affects the currents, and particularly its feared it could affect the Gulf Stream and change its direction.