Ocean warming has more than quadrupled in recent decades and is likely to accelerate even faster if humanity fails to address climate change, scientists find.

The rate of ocean warming has more than quadrupled over the past four decades, a new study has shown. Ocean temperatures were rising at about 0.06 degrees Celsius per decade in the late 1980s, but are now increasing at 0.

"If the oceans were a bathtub of water…now the hot tap is running much faster, and the warming has picked up speed.”

The surface waters of the oceans are getting warmer at a rate of 0.27°C (0.50°F) a decade, new research shows. This compares with just 0.06°C (0.11°F) in the late 1980s, when we first noticed there was a problem.