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The ocean is taking up twice as much heat now as it was just two decades ago, relative to pre-industrial times. According to new research, a third of that heat—and rising—is finding its way into the deep ocean below 700m, temporarily slowing warming at Earth’s surface.
That the oceans are warming isn’t a surprise to scientists—it’s what we would expect from rising greenhouse gases. The more surprising part is the speed at which it is taking place.
The new study, published yesterday in Nature Climate Change, says as much heat entered the oceans in the last 18 years as in the previous 130 years.
The new findings add to a growing body of research on the unseen impact of human activity on the oceans and the role they play in moderating the temperature we feel on Earth’s surface, say scientists not involved in the study.
A Brief History
The oceans take up more than 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases. It follows, then, that we would look to the oceans in seeking the fingerprint of human-caused climate change.
Scientists have been studying the oceans for hundreds of years. The Challenger expedition in the 1870s was considered the first real oceanographic voyage, bringing back with it reams of data from previously unexplored parts of the world, from the ocean surface to the sea floor.
Scientists’ instruments have changed a lot over time, from lowering buckets over the sides of wooden ships to the global fleet of drifting floats we have today, known as the ARGO array. Separating real changes in ocean heating from artefacts of switching from old to new methods is one of the biggest challenges in understanding how the oceans have changed over time.
Model Match
The new study begins by compiling several different sets of observational measurements, from the Challenger expedition right up to the present day.
These include ship-based surveys of the upper ocean down to 700m repeated every year since the 1960s, temperature data down to 2,000m collected by ARGO floats since 2005 and transects carried out by ships extending down to below 2,000m in some parts of the world.
The observational data are far from perfect. There are many areas with sparse data, which means reliably estimating changes to ocean heat content is difficult using observations alone.
To address this, the study compares the different observational datasets with simulations from climate models (CMIP5) used in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, forced with historically realistic levels of greenhouse gases, emissions from land use, changes in solar activity and the temporary cooling effect of volcanic eruptions.
On the whole, the observations compared well with the average from the model simulations at all depths considered (0-700m, 700-2000m and below 2,000m). And it was passing this reliability test that allowed the scientists to cast the models backwards and examine how heat content in the oceans today compares to pre-industrial times.
Double Trouble
For the ocean as a whole, the authors find that 50 percent of the heat taken up since 1865 has occurred since 1997. In other words, the oceans have absorbed as much heat in the past 18 years as in the previous 130 years, the paper notes.
The study also find that while most of the heat stayed in the upper ocean, about 35 percent found its way to the deep ocean below 700m—and that fraction has increased steadily over time.
These new findings largely confirm what scientists already knew about human-induced climate change, says Dr. Matt Palmer from the Met Office Hadley Center:
"This research shows the strengthening of the climate change signal over time and that more of this signal is finding its way into the deep ocean."
The study also confirms that while temperatures at Earth’s surface have risen more slowly over the past 10-15 years than in previous decades—a familiar feature if you look back at Earth’s full temperature record—there has been no such change of pace in the oceans. Palmer adds:
"[The study] confirms that ocean heat uptake has been proceeding at the expected rate—the ‘hiatus’ is a surface phenomenon. The Earth is still warming and the oceans have been taking up the bulk of that heat."
The novel part of today’s study comes in the comparison of observations with climate models—particularly below 700m—and the comparison of ocean heat content now with preindustrial times. Scientists’ interest in studying the deep ocean has been driven partly by a wish to understand the behaviour of surface temperatures in recent times but mostly by advances in the ways available to monitor ocean temperature, says Palmer.
Bigger Picture
There is still some work to do in pinning down exactly how much heat the oceans have taken up in the past two decades and whether that can account for the whole so-called slowdown in surface warming, the paper notes. That’s not as straightforward as it sounds, largely because of how to account for the transition to ARGO floats from traditional methods, the paper notes.
Another point to note is that the climate models used do not include volcanic eruptions after 2000, which the authors estimate could offset the rise in global temperature by around 7 percent.
While the oceans seem to have slowed warming at the Earth’s surface in recent decades, this shouldn’t be interpreted as a good thing, says Prof. John Shepherd from the National Oceanography Center in Southampton. He says:
"Once the ocean heat uptake settles down again, the rate of warming is likely to return to what it was before."
How the ocean acts to moderate surface temperatures is vital for understanding how our planet responds to greenhouse gases over the long term, a concept known as the “climate sensitivity." The mechanisms and timescales at play are critical pieces of that ongoing puzzle.
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Ola Elvestrun, Norway's environment minister, announced Thursday that it is freezing its contributions to the Amazon Fund, and will no longer be transferring €300 million ($33.2 million) to Brazil. In a press release, the Norwegian embassy in Brazil stated:
Given the present circumstances, Norway does not have either the legal or the technical basis for making its annual contribution to the Amazon Fund.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro reacted with sarcasm to Norway's decision, which had been widely expected. After an official event, he commented: "Isn't Norway the country that kills whales at the North Pole? Doesn't it also produce oil? It has no basis for telling us what to do. It should give the money to Angela Merkel [the German Chancellor] to reforest Germany."
According to its website, the Amazon Fund is a "REDD+ mechanism created to raise donations for non-reimbursable investments in efforts to prevent, monitor and combat deforestation, as well as to promote the preservation and sustainable use in the Brazilian Amazon." The bulk of funding comes from Norway and Germany.
The annual transfer of funds from developed world donors to the Amazon Fund depends on a report from the Fund's technical committee. This committee meets after the National Institute of Space Research, which gathers official Amazon deforestation data, publishes its annual report with the definitive figures for deforestation in the previous year.
But this year the Amazon Fund's technical committee, along with its steering committee, COFA, were abolished by the Bolsonaro government on 11 April as part of a sweeping move to dissolve some 600 bodies, most of which had NGO involvement. The Bolsonaro government views NGO work in Brazil as a conspiracy to undermine Brazil's sovereignty.
The Brazilian government then demanded far-reaching changes in the way the fund is managed, as documented in a previous article. As a result, the Amazon Fund's technical committee has been unable to meet; Norway says it therefore cannot continue making donations without a favorable report from the committee.
Archer Daniels Midland soy silos in Mato Grosso along the BR-163 highway, where Amazon rainforest has largely been replaced by soy destined for the EU, UK, China and other international markets.
Thaís Borges.
An Uncertain Future
The Amazon Fund was announced during the 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, during a period when environmentalists were alarmed at the rocketing rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. It was created as a way of encouraging Brazil to continue bringing down the rate of forest conversion to pastures and croplands.
Government agencies, such as IBAMA, Brazil's environmental agency, and NGOs shared Amazon Fund donations. IBAMA used the money primarily to enforce deforestation laws, while the NGOs oversaw projects to support sustainable communities and livelihoods in the Amazon.
There has been some controversy as to whether the Fund has actually achieved its goals: in the three years before the deal, the rate of deforestation fell dramatically but, after money from the Fund started pouring into the Amazon, the rate remained fairly stationary until 2014, when it began to rise once again. But, in general, the international donors have been pleased with the Fund's performance, and until the Bolsonaro government came to office, the program was expected to continue indefinitely.
Norway has been the main donor (94 percent) to the Amazon Fund, followed by Germany (5 percent), and Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobrás (1 percent). Over the past 11 years, the Norwegians have made, by far, the biggest contribution: R$3.2 billion ($855 million) out of the total of R$3.4 billion ($903 million).
Up till now the Fund has approved 103 projects, with the dispersal of R$1.8 billion ($478 million). These projects will not be affected by Norway's funding freeze because the donors have already provided the funding and the Brazilian Development Bank is contractually obliged to disburse the money until the end of the projects. But there are another 54 projects, currently being analyzed, whose future is far less secure.
One of the projects left stranded by the dissolution of the Fund's committees is Projeto Frutificar, which should be a three-year project, with a budget of R$29 million ($7.3 million), for the production of açai and cacao by 1,000 small-scale farmers in the states of Amapá and Pará. The project was drawn up by the Brazilian NGO IPAM (Institute of Environmental research in Amazonia).
Paulo Moutinho, an IPAM researcher, told Globo newspaper: "Our program was ready to go when the [Brazilian] government asked for changes in the Fund. It's now stuck in the BNDES. Without funding from Norway, we don't know what will happen to it."
Norway is not the only European nation to be reconsidering the way it funds environmental projects in Brazil. Germany has many environmental projects in the Latin American country, apart from its small contribution to the Amazon Fund, and is deeply concerned about the way the rate of deforestation has been soaring this year.
The German environment ministry told Mongabay that its minister, Svenja Schulze, had decided to put financial support for forest and biodiversity projects in Brazil on hold, with €35 million ($39 million) for various projects now frozen.
The ministry explained why: "The Brazilian government's policy in the Amazon raises doubts whether a consistent reduction in deforestation rates is still being pursued. Only when clarity is restored, can project collaboration be continued."
Bauxite mines in Paragominas, Brazil. The Bolsonaro administration is urging new laws that would allow large-scale mining within Brazil's indigenous reserves.
Hydro / Halvor Molland / Flickr
Alternative Amazon Funding
Although there will certainly be disruption in the short-term as a result of the paralysis in the Amazon Fund, the governors of Brazil's Amazon states, which rely on international funding for their environmental projects, are already scrambling to create alternative channels.
In a press release issued yesterday Helder Barbalho, the governor of Pará, the state with the highest number of projects financed by the Fund, said that he will do all he can to maintain and increase his state partnership with Norway.
Barbalho had announced earlier that his state would be receiving €12.5 million ($11.1 million) to run deforestation monitoring centers in five regions of Pará. Barbalho said: "The state governments' monitoring systems are recording a high level of deforestation in Pará, as in the other Amazon states. The money will be made available to those who want to help [the Pará government reduce deforestation] without this being seen as international intervention."
Amazonas state has funding partnerships with Germany and is negotiating deals with France. "I am talking with countries, mainly European, that are interested in investing in projects in the Amazon," said Amazonas governor Wilson Miranda Lima. "It is important to look at Amazônia, not only from the point of view of conservation, but also — and this is even more important — from the point of view of its citizens. It's impossible to preserve Amazônia if its inhabitants are poor."
Signing of the EU-Mercusor Latin American trading agreement earlier this year. The pact still needs to be ratified.
Council of Hemispheric Affairs
Looming International Difficulties
The Bolsonaro government's perceived reluctance to take effective measures to curb deforestation may in the longer-term lead to a far more serious problem than the paralysis of the Amazon Fund.
In June, the European Union and Mercosur, the South American trade bloc, reached an agreement to create the largest trading bloc in the world. If all goes ahead as planned, the pact would account for a quarter of the world's economy, involving 780 million people, and remove import tariffs on 90 percent of the goods traded between the two blocs. The Brazilian government has predicted that the deal will lead to an increase of almost $100 billion in Brazilian exports, particularly agricultural products, by 2035.
But the huge surge this year in Amazon deforestation is leading some European countries to think twice about ratifying the deal. In an interview with Mongabay, the German environment ministry made it very clear that Germany is very worried about events in the Amazon: "We are deeply concerned given the pace of destruction in Brazil … The Amazon Forest is vital for the atmospheric circulation and considered as one of the tipping points of the climate system."
The ministry stated that, for the trade deal to go ahead, Brazil must carry out its commitment under the Paris Climate agreement to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent below the 2005 level by 2030. The German environment ministry said: If the trade deal is to go ahead, "It is necessary that Brazil is effectively implementing its climate change objectives adopted under the [Paris] Agreement. It is precisely this commitment that is expressly confirmed in the text of the EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement."
Blairo Maggi, Brazil agriculture minister under the Temer administration, and a major shareholder in Amaggi, the largest Brazilian-owned commodities trading company, has said very little in public since Bolsonaro came to power; he's been "in a voluntary retreat," as he puts it. But Maggi is so concerned about the damage Bolsonaro's off the cuff remarks and policies are doing to international relationships he decided to speak out earlier this week.
Former Brazil Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi, who has broken a self-imposed silence to criticize the Bolsonaro government, saying that its rhetoric and policies could threaten Brazil's international commodities trade.
Senado Federal / Visualhunt / CC BY
Maggi, a ruralista who strongly supports agribusiness, told the newspaper, Valor Econômico, that, even if the European Union doesn't get to the point of tearing up a deal that has taken 20 years to negotiate, there could be long delays. "These environmental confusions could create a situation in which the EU says that Brazil isn't sticking to the rules." Maggi speculated. "France doesn't want the deal and perhaps it is taking advantage of the situation to tear it up. Or the deal could take much longer to ratify — three, five years."
Such a delay could have severe repercussions for Brazil's struggling economy which relies heavily on its commodities trade with the EU. Analysists say that Bolsonaro's fears over such an outcome could be one reason for his recently announced October meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, another key trading partner.
Maggi is worried about another, even more alarming, potential consequence of Bolsonaro's failure to stem illegal deforestation — Brazil could be hit by a boycott by its foreign customers. "I don't buy this idea that the world needs Brazil … We are only a player and, worse still, replaceable." Maggi warns, "As an exporter, I'm telling you: things are getting very difficult. Brazil has been saying for years that it is possible to produce and preserve, but with this [Bolsonaro administration] rhetoric, we are going back to square one … We could find markets closed to us."
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