The simple, cheap instruments measuring global warming in the oceans | John Abraham

They may be cheap and expendable, but XBTs provide crucial data about the oceans

Earth is warming due to the release of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Scientists are working hard to measure how fast the planet is warming, how much warming has occurred over the past few decades, and how this is affecting coastal areas, ecosystems, and fisheries. By understanding these factors, scientists can better project future climate impacts.

A large component of Earth’s warming involves the oceans, which absorb excess heat. The difficulty of gathering measurements in the oceans is that they are vast, deep, and often hard to reach. It’s also costly. Think about it: if you wanted to take the ocean’s temperature, how would you do it?

Obtaining ocean temperature measurements in a sustained manner is critical for assessing global changes and for studying how they may potentially impact climate, weather, and ecosystems. This is truly and international and multi-institutional effort, which for example, together with other types of ocean observations, satellite data and numerical models, has allowed us to estimate the heat transported in the South Atlantic Ocean and helped us to identify and assess connections with global extreme weather events.

XBTs provide a unique tool that allows us to gain insight on how these changes are occurring, which very often provide managers and decision makers with information to evaluate and facilitate mitigation efforts.