Climate science, over the past few decades, especially since the turn of the new century, has increasingly identified trouble spots with ecosystems that support life on Earth. These crucial ecosystems are stressed. But not many of the scientific reports of the past couple of decades compares to a bone-chilling new study of massive ocean heat accumulation in the year 2025, published January 14^th, 2026, ScienceDaily: The Ocean Absorbed a Stunning Amount of Heat in 2025. Sources: Institute of Atmospheric Physics and Chinese Academy of Sciences.

That report lays out stark details: “In 2025 alone, the ocean gained 23 Zetta Joules (23,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules of energy, of heat). That amount of energy is roughly equal to about 37 years of total global primary energy use at 2023 levels (~620 Exa Joules per year). The findings are based on work by more than 50 scientists representing 31 research institutions across the globe.”

In other words, it is equivalent to every power plant, every car, every light bulb, and every device on Earth continuously in use for 37 years. This is how much extra heat the oceans absorbed in 2025, in one year!