14 DAY TRIAL // Global warming has only begun accelerating in the past few decades, but this does not meant that its effects were not visible long before that. This was confirmed in a new study, which showed that the world's oceans have been getting warmer for more than a century,
What this research suggests is that climate change began 50 years before the date scientists originally calculated. This also means that the process is significantly more advanced than what we originally suspected, LiveScience reports.
Data used in the research came from the HMS Challenger, which sailed the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans between 1872 and 1876, covering in excess of 69,000 nautical miles (127,788 kilometers), and making 300+ measurements of water temperatures at multiple locations.
By comparing this dataset with modern readings, scientists were able to discover a 1.1-degree Fahrenheit (0.59-degree Celsius) increase in average temperatures, indicating that the oceans were warming even 135 years ago.