The heat capacity of the entire atmosphere is equal to just the top 3.5 meters of the world's oceans.
Below this surface lies Earth’s true thermal vault. Earth is a water planet, and the oceans cover 71% of the surface to an average depth of 2.3 miles. Global ocean currents carry warm waters from the deep tropics to the northern hemisphere, before returning after a round trip of 1,000 years.
Without these currents, northern Europe would be a glacial wilderness, just like Greenland.
The scale is colossal. Warm waters from the Roman warm period (240 BC to 400 AD) are still returning to the mid-latitudes. The atmosphere, by comparison, is a gaseous envelope that retains almost no thermal energy, holds a tiny fraction of the planet's carbon, and is largely controlled by ocean dynamics.
The deep Pacific itself is so massive that only now it is receiving the cold waters from the Little Ice Age. We aren't starting from scratch; we are mid-cycle in a 4.6-billion-year-old time machine.
We’ve also reinvented 'climate'. Once, it was a word for the local weather of robins and sparrows. Now it's a global ideological abstraction. We’ve lost our admiration for the natural world. We count CO₂ in parts per million while ignoring the satellite-proven greening of the Sahel.
It’s time to move past the light breezes and offshore winds and look into the ocean depths for answers. Ask yourself, is the 1.4°C warming since 1850 really an unprecedented crisis?
🇳🇴 One last Row.
Crown Prince HAAKON himself beat the drum while the Norwegian team and thousands of fans rowed together in unison.
Norway left as legends. See you in 2030.
🔴 Toutes nos excuses eux joueurs Paraguayens qui ont été fair-play, respectueux, éthiques, droits et professionnels, comme rarement dans le monde du football
El vídeo completo de Cristiano Ronaldo yéndose del campo.
Nadie olvidará tú legado.
El mundo entero te quiere.
GRACIAS POR TANTO Y PERDÓN POR TAN POCO.
MI ÍDOLO DE POR VIDA ♥️🐐 https://t.co/n9tOAaxiyX
The summer heatwave gripping southern Europe right now is nothing new — it's an ancient, recurring weather pattern.
Media coverage has largely failed to explain what's actually happening. This is a commonplace event with a long history.
The classic name for these hot winds (and the associated air masses) blowing northward from the Sahara Desert across the Mediterranean into southern Europe is the Sirocco.
It transports warm, dry — and often dusty — air from North Africa. As it crosses the sea, the air picks up moisture, arriving as humid, oppressive conditions over Italy, Spain, Malta, southern France and beyond. Sirocco winds can reach strong or even gale-force speeds. While most common in spring and autumn, they occur in summer too.
Effects include Saharan dust outbreaks that can turn skies reddish, produce 'blood rain', spike temperatures, and create discomfort. These events are frequently accompanied by a broad African anticyclone (or 'African heat dome') — a large high-pressure system that pushes hot air northward, driving wider European heatwaves.
Saharan dust outbreaks and the Saharan air layer often ride along, carrying fine particles far north and contributing to hazy skies. Far from unusual, these are well-known drivers of summer extremes in the region — as the attached Copernicus image clearly shows with the prominent dust plume streaming toward Italy and beyond.