NOAA State of the Climate in 2013: ‘Our Planet Is Becoming a Warmer Place’

The planet kept warming at an unhealthy pace last year, according to a report by hundreds of the world’s top scientists led by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Tom Karl, director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, said that the planetary vital signs documented in this report, “State of the Climate in 2013,” reveal “The planet is changing more rapidly … than in any time of modern civilization.”

One of the most important findings is that “upper ocean heat content has increased significantly over the past two decades”

Recent studies estimate that warming of the upper oceans accounts for about 63 percent of the total increase in the amount of stored heat in the climate system from 1971 to 2010, and warming from 700 meters to the ocean floor adds about another 30 percent.

So the place where climate scientists predicted the overwhelming majority of the heat trapped by human emissions would end up is precisely where there has been rapid warming in the past 20 years.

NOAA State of the Climate in 2013: ‘Our Planet Is Becoming a Warmer Place’