Earth and Leaf Editorial - Earth being pushed beyond its limits
The Earth being pushed beyond its limits comes as no surprise. Read on, we need comment no further …
Earth being pushed beyond its limits. Heatwaves and acidification are growing problems for corals and other marine life. Photograph: Mike Veitch/Alamy
Excerpt
State of the Climate report finds Earth’s energy has moved dangerously out of balance, with oceans absorbing vast majority of trapped heat.
Our home planet is struggling with a record energy imbalance, which is warming oceans to unprecedented levels, making weather more extreme and threatening health and food supplies, the World Meteorological Organization has warned.
The United Nations body confirmed 2015 to 2025 were the hottest 11 years ever measured, but a still bleaker message was that the rising temperature experienced by humans on the surface was only 1% of the faster-accumulating heat in the wider Earth system.
More than 90% of that excess is absorbed by the oceans, which experienced the highest heat content in history last year. The rate of ocean warming has more than doubled over the past two decades, compared with the average over the previous 45 years.
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