This week a new study published in the academic journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences revealed that the ocean had absorbed another 14 zettajoules of energy in the last year. A joule is a measurement of energy and a "zetta" is a prefix that saves us from writing the number like this: 14,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules of energy.
As one of the authors of the study wrote in The Guardian, that amount of energy is the equivalent of 440 billion toasters (57 toasters per person around the world) running 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
Don't boil the ocean
More than 90% of global warming heat eventually ends up in the ocean, which is an excellent store of heat and energy. Warmer oceans can store energy that might otherwise end up in our atmosphere, but they can also mean less sea ice, higher sea levels and disruptions to the all important ocean currents.
