This is really an important study: CO2 warming effects felt just a decade after being emitted
This is according to researchers at the Carnegie Institute for Science who have dispelled a common misconception that the main warming effects from a CO2 emission will not be felt for several decades.
It is interestging to speculate how many people are aware of this. The whole system of change is speeding up the more we learn about it. Read on below for more information.
The results showed that the median time between a single CO2 emission and maximum warming was 10.1 years, and reaffirmed that most of the warming persists for more than a century.
The reason for this time lag is because the upper layers of the oceans take longer to heat up than the atmosphere. As the oceans take up more and more heat which causes the overall climate to warm up, the warming effects of CO2 emissions actually begin to diminish as CO2 is eventually removed from the atmosphere. It takes around 10 years for these two competing factors to cancel each other out and for warming to be at a maximum.
“Our results show that people alive today are very likely to benefit from emissions avoided today and that these will not accrue solely to impact future generations,” Dr Ricke continued.
"Our findings should dislodge previous misconceptions about this timeframe that have played a key part in the failure to reach policy consensus.”
In case you missed this point let me emphasize it:
most of the warming persists for more than a century.
The
Effects of global warming on oceans are these:
Global warming can affect sea levels, coastlines, ocean acidification, ocean currents, seawater, sea surface temperatures, tides, the sea floor, weather, and trigger several changes in ocean bio-geochemistry; all of these affect the functioning of a society
What is tricky about all this is the interactions. Reading a list like this is not the whole story. The study above makes this clear. CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere and heating occurs. Over time the heat is absorbed by the ocean. The temperature of the water goes up. Water's ability to hold dissolved CO2 is inversely related to the temperature. As the water heats up it releases CO2 into the atmosphere.
I hope you can see the positive feedback here. It is far more complex than that. I made my career doing computer modeling of large interacting system and believe me this is not one I'd like to tackle.