Since the 1960s, each decade has been warmer than the last, as predicted by many climate models. However, the scientific community is debating whether the rate of warming is increasing, especially in light of last year’s climate chaos. A few months ago, former NASA climate scientist James Hansen, who published one of the first major articles warning the world about global warming, wrote a study that found the rate of warming had increased by 50% since 2010.

Although some climate models predicted some acceleration, this was met with skepticism by our colleagues.

“[Дослідження Хансена] “It’s not unreasonable, but it’s not particularly supported by the literature,” Berkeley climate scientist Zeke Hausfather told the Associated Press.

Now, a new study led by ecologist Audrey Miniere of Paul Sabatier University in France has found signs of accelerating warming in ocean temperatures as well.

“Despite compelling evidence of a potential increase in the rate of warming, the acceleration in Earth’s warming has so far been difficult to detect,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

Minier and his colleagues estimated in the 1960s that the rate of ocean warming remained steady at 0.15 watts per square meter (W/m2) per decade. However, since then this indicator has increased to 0.91 W/m2.

The researchers caution that their results vary widely and data from earlier years are less reliable, but their findings are consistent across several different data sets. A recent literature review also suggests that the ocean warming rate between 1971 and 2020 was equivalent to 0.48. While it was W/m2, it increased to 0.76 W/m2 between 2006-2020.

“Although there is growing evidence that warming is accelerating, the situation is not ‘worse than we thought’ because scientists mostly expected it,” Hausfather told The Washington Post.

There are various theories about what could be causing this potential acceleration, from changes in cloud cover and dramatic reductions in sea ice creating a feedback system to natural variability combined with increasing contributions from human activity.

“The long-term acceleration of Earth’s warming is qualitatively consistent with the increase in CO2 concentration and decrease in aerosol concentration over the same period,” Minier and colleagues explain. “But more research is needed to accurately explain these changes.”

Current evidence suggests that we will soon move beyond our global commitment to limit global warming to 1.5°C, regardless of whether temperature increases accelerate. We are already feeling, or at least seeing, its effects. All this extra energy in our atmosphere is pushing climate systems to an extreme, like a teetering seesaw before tipping over, leading to deadly floods, fires and storms.