<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12px;" class="">"Ignorance of remote causes disposeth men to attribute all events to the causes immediate and instrumental: for these are all the causes they perceive.”</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12px;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Attributed to Thomas Hobbes </span><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; font-family: Arial; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(84, 84, 84); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(84, 84, 84);" class="">(1588-1679) </span></span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(80, 87, 95); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(80, 87, 95); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">======================</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(80, 87, 95); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(80, 87, 95); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><b class="">Excerpts: </b> Two recently published peer-reviewed studies make clear that the planet’s oceans are continuing to set hottest-yet temperature records nearly every year and, secondly, that the rate of ocean warming is in virtual lockstep with what modern climate models have projected.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(80, 87, 95); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(80, 87, 95); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(6, 179, 165); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(6, 179, 165);" class=""><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00376-019-8276-x" class="">One study</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">, led by Cheng and colleagues and published in <i class="">Advances in Atmospheric Sciences</i>, concludes that 2018 was the hottest year ever recorded in the oceans. In fact, since the turn of the century, all but three years – 2007, 2010, and 2016 – have set a new ocean heat record.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(80, 87, 95); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(80, 87, 95); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Those three exceptions shared a key trait: Each was characterized by significant El Niño events, which transfer heat from the ocean to the air. As a result, for heat at Earth’s surface (in the air above both the land and oceans), 2007 was the second-hottest year up to that time, and 2010 and 2016 both subsequently broke the surface temperature record. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(80, 87, 95); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(80, 87, 95);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none; background-color: #ffffff" class="">About 93 percent of global warming <a href="https://skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=12" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(6, 179, 165); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(6, 179, 165);" class="">goes into heating the oceans</span></a>, compared to about 2 percent warming the atmosphere. As the hottest year in the oceans, 2018 therefore was the hottest year ever recorded for the planet as a whole.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(80, 87, 95); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(80, 87, 95);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: rgb(255, 251, 0);" class="">What’s it all mean? Because humans live on Earth’s surface, it’s </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 251, 0); -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">only natural that we focus primarily on the air temperatures that we experience most directly. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">But most of the heat trapped by the tens of billions of tons of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere each year is absorbed by the oceans; it’s there that El Niño and La Niña events exert significant influence over the amount of heat transferred each year to the air. As a result, surface temperatures are quite variable, and </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 251, 0); -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">the public at large can mistakenly focus o</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">n <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/nov/24/study-drives-a-sixth-nail-in-the-global-warming-pause-myth" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(6, 179, 165); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(6, 179, 165);" class="">short-term surface warming changes</span></a></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(6, 179, 165); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(6, 179, 165);" class=""> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 251, 0); -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">and lose sight of the big picture.</span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(80, 87, 95); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(80, 87, 95); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""><a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/02/earths-oceans-are-routinely-breaking-heat-records/" class="">https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/02/earths-oceans-are-routinely-breaking-heat-records/</a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; font-family: "PT Serif"; color: rgb(80, 87, 95); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(80, 87, 95); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); min-height: 18px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></div></body></html>