🌅 Today’s stat: 484 zettajoules

SOURCE

Carbon Brief

WHAT TO KNOW

• Last year was the warmest on record for ocean heat content (OHC), increasing by around 16 zettajoules compared to 2023. OHC has increased by about 484 zettajoules since the 1940s, with a distinct acceleration beginning in the early 1990s.

WHY IT MATTERS

• To put those figures into perspective, the entire world consumes around half a zettajoule of energy each year, and the 16-zettajoule increase in 2024 was around 25 times the total amount of energy produced by all human activities in 2023. Experts say OHC represents a better measure of climate change than surface temperatures since the ocean is where most extra heat ends up (around 90% of the extra heat trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere due to carbon emissions is stored in the ocean), and because OHC is much less variable on a year-to-year basis.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• The ocean is a critical driver of the Earth’s climate: most of the solar energy absorbed by the ocean happens around the Equator, where massive horizontal and vertical ocean currents circulate the heat around the planet before releasing it back into the atmosphere. The ocean is also responsible for most rain clouds, dictating the world’s wet and dry zones, while the enormous amounts of energy it absorbs is responsible for the world’s most destructive storms and extreme weather events.

READER CONTEXT

Yesterday, we told you about where school shooters get their guns. Charles O. from Brooklyn, New York added some additional context we wanted to share:

• “People who don’t securely store their firearms when kids live in their house really need to reflect on what they’re doing. It’s such a simple thing to store guns safely. If you’re going to be a gun owner, at least be responsible (for everyone’s sake).”