‘Alarming’ study: Oceans heating at a rapid pace

Editor’s note: Two weeks after this study was published, the authors submitted corrections to their findings, acknowledging errors in their calculations. While the main premise of the study stands — that oceans are absorbing more heat each year — the figures that the team reported were found to be inaccurate, greatly increasing the margin of error of their findings.

Mistakes, corrections and transparency are part of the scientific process, and in that same spirit of transparency, we are leaving this post online.

The amount of heat accumulated by the oceans in recent decades may be much higher than originally thought, according to a study published this week.

Earth’s oceans, the study’s authors reported, have absorbed 60 percent more heat per year than realized.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, could have troubling implications for the “carbon budget,” the
maximum amount of carbon that humans could emit into the atmosphere and still keep global average temperatures below an increase of 2 degrees Celsius.

If the findings are accurate, they are…