135 Years of Records Reveals Deep Ocean Warming

scientificamerican.com ^ | 1 April 2012 | David Biello

[smokingfrog]

Her Majesty's Ship Challenger set sail in 1872. Stripped of her guns and outfitted for science, her mission was to sail around the globe sampling as she went.

Among other scientific triumphs, the Challenger gathered the first global set of ocean temperature readings, more than 260 in all. The British expedition measured from the surface to a depth beyond 900 meters.

In 2004, a set of drifting buoys began to make similar measurements. There are now more than 3000 of these floats bobbing in the world's seas, collecting oceanographic information.

Comparing the data sets, separated by more than a century in time, reveals that, yes, the ocean is warming. On average, the global ocean is warmer by roughly 0.6 degrees Celsius at the surface and 0.1 degrees at depth. The analysis appears in the journal Nature Climate Change.

[tet68]

I’m not familiar with that type of thermometer but
I do know that Nansen bottles for taking water samples
at depth weren’t invented until 1910. Assuming they
could be used to maintain a temp until retrieved
at the surface.

[smokingfrog]

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/library/readings/science/media/thermometers_600.jpg

http://www.19thcenturyscience.org/HMSC/HMSC-Reports/1873-Thomson/PDFpages/0305.pdf

http://www.19thcenturyscience.org/HMSC/HMSC-Reports/1895-Summary/htm/doc.html

[smokingfrog]

Six's thermometer