Underestimated Heat Storage

There are many effects of climate change. Perhaps the most broadly known is global warming, which is caused by heat building up in various parts of the Earth system, such as the atmosphere, the ocean, the cryosphere and the land. 89 percent of this excess heat is stored in the oceans, with the rest in ice and glaciers, the atmosphere and land masses (including inland water bodies). An international research team led by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) has now studied the quantity of heat stored on land, showing the distribution of land heat among the continental ground, permafrost soils, and inland water bodies. The calculations, published in Earth System Dynamics, show that more than 20 times as much heat has been stored there since the 1960s, with the largest increase being in the ground. 

The increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere prevents the emission of heat into space. As a result, the earth constantly absorbs more heat through solar radiation than it can give back off through thermal radiation. Previous studies show where this additional energy is stored: primarily in the oceans (89 percent), but also in the land masses of the continents (5-6 percent), in ice and glaciers (4 percent) and in the atmosphere (1-2 percent). However, this knowledge is incomplete: For example, it was previously uncertain just how this additional heat was distributed in the continental landmasses.

Read more at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ

Image: Global heat storage has increased significantly in the ground (red line), in thawing permafrost (green line) and in inland water bodies (blue line) over the period from 1960 to 2020. The new calculations add precision to data from an earlier study (von Schuckmann et al. (2020)). Photo: Author(s) 2023 via UFZ