Oceans: Not Overheating, Not Acidifying

The boiling ocean scare has been a reliable standby for every alarmist promoting the Net Zero insanity for almost two years now. But expect the scare to be parked for awhile along with coral reefs, polar bears and Arctic sea ice. It is a very good bet that nobody in mainstream media is going to report the oceans are cooling at what are remarkably dramatic rates. Few fear mongering points will be on offer for drawing attention to this inconvenient news. ⁽¹⁾

Last year we were all going to die because the oceans were literally, figuratively boiling away reports Stephen Green. Whatever, it was a very bad thing even though the Great Barrier Reef seemed to love it. Seriously, the GBR is in better shape than it’s been in for years. But now, surface ocean temperatures are plunging rapidly around the world with scientists reported to be puzzled at the speed of the recent decline.

For whatever reason, ocean temps were up a full degree Celsius or so since the mid-‘80s, but 2024 is showing cooling like we’ve never seen before. Then again, if our data only goes back to the mid-‘80s, how much do we really know about oceans that are billions of years old and surround continents that slowly drift around? ⁽¹⁾

This year daily sea surface temperature (SST) fell more sharply than last year and is now 0.2 C lower. In the Atlantic, the turnaround has been even more dramatic. Temperatures have cooled quickly since May and in the central equatorial region are up to 1 C colder than average for this time of year. “Never before in the observed record has the eastern equatorial Atlantic swung so quickly from one to another extreme event,” observes the American weather service NOAA. ⁽²⁾

It is not only in the Atlantic that surface temperatures are plunging. In the Pacific, a strong El Nino natural variation that warms the ocean and affects weather across the planet has dissipated. The higher SST anomalies recorded over the last year have fallen sharply as the latest figures from NOAA show.

According to NOAA, SSTs in three of the four locations around the Pacific used to determine the presence of an El Nino are now below the long-term trend. Temperatures have also dropped considerably in many parts of the Pacific down to 300 meters. ⁽²⁾

Nature is retracting a 2018 paper which found that the oceans are warming much faster than predicted by previous models of climate change. ⁽³⁾

Atlantic Circulation

For decades, mainstream media outlets have asserted that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is on the verge of collapse, bringing catastrophic consequences to the planet. This is false. Recent research indicates that climate change has not altered the Atlantic Ocean current, despite repeated claims by the media and some supposed experts to the contrary. ⁽⁴⁾

Two recent peer reviewed studies, ^(5,6) both published in Nature, confirm what many climate realists have pointed out for years—the AMOC has remained stable for at least 60 years, displaying no significant slowing trend. Going further, the scholars who conducted the research concluded that there is no credible evidence to suggest that such a collapse is imminent or even likely in the foreseeable future. Commenting on the climate models which have forecast a collapse of the AMOC, the scientists carrying out the research concluded that climate models are flawed and overstate the risks, models’ simulations have failed to match actual measured trends.

Oceans Cool Earth

For the first time, researchers have found the oceans help cool global temperatures more than anyone previously thought. Specifically, sulfur gas produced by marine life emits a second compound that significantly cools the planet. (7)

Researchers have quantified the global emissions of a sulfur gas produced by marine life, revealing it cools the climate more than previously thought, especially over the Southern Ocean.

The study shows that the oceans not only capture and redistribute the sun’s heat, but produce gases that make particles with immediate climatic effects. For example, through the brightening of clouds that reflect this heat.

Climate models have greatly overestimated the solar radiation actually reaching the Southern Ocean, largely because they are not capable of correctly simulating clouds. The work done here partially closes the longstanding knowledge gap between models and observations.

Declining Water Vapor

Per state-of-the art climate models, relative humidity should remain relatively constant, if not decline slightly as a consequence of CO2 induced global warming. But 40 years of observations (1980-) show not a slight declining trend, but a declining trend that is ‘about an order of magnitude more than the models on average.’ In other words, the climate models are wrong by a factor of 10. ⁽⁸⁾

What does this tell us? That ocean temperatures fluctuate. That long term trends are more complicated than the alarmists would have you believe. And perhaps most importantly, that the overconfidence in computer models and the myopic focus on short term anomalies is profoundly misplaced. ⁽⁹⁾

Ocean Acidification

A modest long-term (1800s to present) declining trend in ocean pH values predominantly occurred prior to 1930 or before anthropogenic CO2 emissions began rising precipitously. Since 1930, seawater pH trends have risen slightly, meaning sharply rising CO2 has been coincident with less, not more ocean acidification. ⁽¹⁰⁾

A study shows ocean pH (acidification) levels naturally vary seasonally and by decades at rates and magnitudes far exceeding those attributed to anthropogenic activity.

In the 1730s and 1930s-‘40s pH levels were lower than in 2000. And the highest pH levels (less acidic) of the last 300 years occurred in the 1960s to 1980s. Anthropogenic CO2 emissions were negligible to non-existent in the 1730s, and by the 1930s they were only hovering around 1 GtC/year. In the late 20^th century, human emissions rates reached about 5 or 6 GtC/year, and yet it was these decades that had the highest pH levels since the early 18^th century. ⁽¹¹⁾

Further, seawater pH in the south China Sea varies seasonally, from 8.1 in winter to 7.6 in summer. So, within a span of months, the ocean pH varies far more than it allegedly has due to human activity over centuries. ⁽¹²⁾

Why wasn’t the relationship of CO2 and pH called ocean acidification prior to the global warming myth? Because seawater cannot become acidic, at least not under real world conditions, says David Middleton. ⁽¹³⁾

Here’s a very key point! A study of seawater pH near active volcanic CO2 vents in the Mediterranean found that the pH immediately adjacent to the vet was still alkaline, despite being subjected to the equivalent of 5,600 ppm CO2. ⁽¹⁴⁾

The science of seawater geochemistry has been around a long time. The relationship between CO2 and pH has been observed for a long time. Why did they suddenly fabricate the phrase ocean acidification to describe this process? Because people are almost as afraid of acid as they are of radiation. Scientists have been tracking ocean pH for more than 30 whole years. That’s like a whole geological nanosecond! ⁽¹³⁾

References

1. Stephen Green, “So about those oceans that were just about to boil away,” pjmedia.com, August 29, 2024
2. Chris Morrison, “Party over for alarmists as sea temperatures plunge around the world,” dailysceptic.org, August 27. 2024
3. “Nature paper on ocean warming retracted”, retractionwatech.com., September 27, 2019
4. Anthony Watts, “Why isn’t the mainstream media reporting that ocean circulation is doing well?, com, February 28, 2025
5. A. Baker et al., “Continued Atlantic overturning circulation even under climate extremes,” Nature, 638, 987-994, (2025)
6. Jens Terhaar et al., “Atlantic overturning inferred from air-sea heat fluxes indicates no decline since the 1960s,” Nature, Communications 16, Article number 222 (2025)
7. Charel Wohl et al., “Marine emissions of methanethiol increases aerosol cooling in the Southern Ocean,” Science Advances, 2024; 10(48)
8. Kenneth Richard, New study: ocean warming is supposed to increase water vapor, but it’s been declining since 2008,” notrickszone.com, February 24, 2025
9. Charles Rotter, “Ocean temperatures and climate hysteria: a lesson in perspective,” wattsupwiththat.com, December 2024
10. Kenneth Richard, “Analysis finds oceans have become less acidic with rising CO2, challenging the acidification narrative,” notrickszone.com, February 14, 2019
11. Hai-Zhen Wei et al., “Evolution of paleo-climate and seawater pH from the late Permian to postindustrial periods recorded by boron isotopes and B/Ca in biogenic carbonates,” Earth-Science Reviews, Volume 215, April 2021
12. Kenneth Richard, “Oceans were more acidic in the 1730s. Today’s CO2 levels are geologically trifling,” notrickszone.com, September 20, 2021
13. David Middleton, “The total myth of ocean acidification,” wattsupwiththat.com, June 5, 2018
14. Philip Kerrison et al., “Assessment of pH variability at a coastal CO2 vent for ocean acidification studies,” Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 2011, 1-9