Levitus et al. (2012) is now in press...
Figure 2... breaks out the data to show the OHC [ocean heat content] contribution from the 700 to 2000 meter ocean layer.
...The amount of global warming which has gone into the oceans over the past 55 years is quite impressive.
"The global linear trend of OHC2000 is 0.43x1022 J yr-1 for 1955-2010 which corresponds to a total increase in heat content of 24.0±1.9x1022 J"
This is an immense amount of energy being added to the oceans which Levitus et al. put into perspective (emphasis added):
"We have estimated an increase of 24x1022 J representing a volume mean warming of 0.09°C of the 0-2000m layer of the World Ocean. If this heat were instantly transferred to the lower 10 km of the global atmosphere it would result in a volume mean warming of this atmospheric layer by approximately 36°C (65°F)."
Levitus et al. note that, of course, this heat won't be instantly transferred to the atmosphere (fortunately!), and that this comparison is simply intended to illustrate the immense amount of energy being stored by the oceans.
This heating amounts to 136 trillion Joules per second (Watts), which as Glenn Tramblyn noted in a previous post, is the equivalent of more than two Hiroshima "Little Boy" atomic bomb detonations per second, every second over a 55-year period. And Levitus et al. note that this immense ocean heating has not slowed in recent years - more of it has simply gone into the deeper ocean layers.
