20 November 2025 / Kiel. So far, the ocean has helped to buffer global warming by absorbing more than 90 per cent of the excess heat trapped in the Earth system by the anthropogenic greenhouse effect. A new modelling study by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel has now examined how the ocean might respond if atmospheric carbon dioxide was drastically reduced in the future. The results show that, after centuries of cooling, the Southern Ocean could trigger renewed warming by releasing the stored heat back into the atmosphere. Whether this would occur as a single major “heat burp”, in many smaller pulses, or continuously over centuries remains unclear. The study has now been published in AGU Advances.

Deadly hotter and longer heatwaves, which worsen in severity the longer it takes to reach net zero carbon emissions, will become the norm predicts new climate research.

Climate history recorded in a calcite deposit in a southern Nevada cave indicates that the hot, arid southwestern United States experienced significant shifts in temperature and rainfall over the last 580,000 years.