Why are oceans warming faster than land?

Question

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt

The UAH satellites show that in the Southern Hemisphere, the oceans are warming at 0.07oC/dec whereas the land is warming at 0.05oC.

Given that the usual explanation for slower SH warming is that there is more sea which warms slower, what can explain both the faster ocean warming and slower SH warming?

Answer 1

Because water absorbs heat more quickly and releases it more slowly than land does

Answer 2

in south america they discovered very old ruins of a field that had canals. archaeologists thought they served for irrigation. the field is on a high altitute and its cold at night, so those canals serve as a heat collector and at night they radiate the heat. now after thousand years the field is growing food again.

I guess sun rays can go deeper into the water than land and water radiates the heat more longer, it doesnt cools quickly and then next morning its heating up again.

Answer 3

because global warming is fake..al gore is an idiot!

Answer 4

When you say land, you are actually referring to the lower troposphere or air surface temperature, the surface of the Southern Hemisphere is dominated by ocean, which has 1000 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere and plays a dominate part in regulating the temperature of the atmosphere. The answer to your question is AGW is false that is why the oceans are warming faster than the land air surface temperature.

Answer 5

Dana's got it pretty near right.  Central Antarctica is warming more slowly than anuwhere else on Earth.  And the warming is quite uneven, as seen here:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/

The numbers show that this is a pretty small difference.

global    ----------------      north     ------------------               south

     land water      land  water      land water

0.17   0.11   ------------------  0.22   0.17  -----------   0.05   0.07

In general the land does warm faster than the water.  The Northern Hemisphere faster than the South.  The difference in that trend in the Southern Hemisphere is small, and probably explained by Antarctica.

Do you have an alternate explanation?

Answer 6

I don't have a good answer, but it would be interesting to see if the difference is statistically significant (i.e. if the difference between the trends of 0.02°C is outside the margin of error).

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Antarctica makes up a large portion of the SH land area and is covered in ice (high reflectivity)?

Answer 7

Two major factors. It takes 9x the energy to heat water as it does a solid/surface. The answer to your question is that, the prevailing Northern thermohaline. Very cold salty waters will sink in the far North,travel southward toward the equator. Warming as they become less saline... Basically the density factor.

Answer 8

1)  i don't know.

2)  i'd look at currents in the Indian ocean.  wind patterns have changed.  it may also be that ocean currents are carrying more equatorial water south, skewing the results.

it might also be of interest to check for changes in pacific currents.

clearly, a small change in 1/2 the world would skew the results fairly dramatically.

Answer 9

this is because the oceans or rivers or any other water source has the capability to lose and consume heat more slowly then the land.

Answer 10

No, Global warming is real!

that is because of water is a liquid. They give warm a little bit unless you heat these up