Sea levels were much warmer last year than usual, as seen in July 2023
Copernicus Climate Change Service/ECMWF
The ocean may remove much less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than expected in 2023, mainly due to warmer ocean temperatures. If climate change rapidly weakens the Earth’s oceans and continues to absorb carbon from land, dangerous levels of warming will become harder to avoid.
Currently, the ocean absorbs a quarter of the CO2 emitted from the world’s atmosphere each year. But rising temperatures are weakening this natural carbon sink, and observations are not expected until 2023 or later.
