GREENHOUSE sceptics pay attention: new models of ocean temperatures are 鈥渢he
strongest evidence to date鈥� that greenhouse gases are raising the Earth鈥檚
temperature, says Sydney Levitus of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Earlier climate models failed to account properly for interactions between
the ocean and the atmosphere. But Levitus鈥檚 model shows that the ocean is
responding to the effect of the greenhouse gases exactly as expected, with
global waters warming by about 0.3 掳C over the past 40 years. Greenhouse
warming was the only source large enough to account for the rise.
Another computer model tested by Tim Barnett and colleagues at the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography in San Diego also predicted ocean warming that
matched observations (Science, vol 292, p 267 and p 270).
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