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BySethBorenstein The Associated Press WASHINGTON Theamount of man-made heat energy absorbed by the seas has doubled since 1997, a study released Monday showed. Scientists have long known that more than 90 percent of the heat energy from man-made global warming goes into the world's oceans instead of the ground. And they've seen ocean heat content rise in recent years. But the new study, using ocean-ob- serving data that goes back to the British research ship Challenger in the 1870s and including high-tech modern underwater moni- tors and computer models, tracked how much man- made heat has been buried in the oceans in the past 150 years. The world's oceans ab- sorbed approximately 150 zettajoules of energy from 1865 to 1997, and then ab- sorbed about another 150 in the next 18 years, according to a study published Mon- day in the journal Nature Climate Change. To put that in perspec- tive, if you exploded one atomic bomb the size of the one that dropped on Hiroshima every second for a year, the total energy released would be 2 zetta- joules. So since 1997, Earth's oceans have absorbed man- made heat energy equiva- lent to a Hiroshima-style bomb being exploded every second for 75 straight years. "The changes we're talk- ing about, they are really, really big numbers," said study co-author Paul Du- rack, an oceanographer at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California. "They are nonhuman num- bers." Because there are de- cades when good data wasn't available and com- puter simulations are in- volved, the overall figures are rough but still are re- liable, the study's authors said. Most of the added heat has been trapped in the up- per 2,300 feet, but with ev- ery year the deeper oceans also are absorbing more en- ergy, they said. But the study's authors and outside experts say it's not the raw numbers that bother them. It's how fast those numbers are increas- ing. "After 2000 in particular the rate of change is really starting to ramp up," Du- rack said. This means the amount of energy being trapped in Earth's climate system as a whole is accelerating, the study's lead author Pe- ter Gleckler, a climate sci- entist at Lawrence Liver- more, said. Because the oceans are so vast and cold, the ab- sorbed heat raises temper- atures by only a few tenths of a degree, but the impor- tance is the energy balance, Gleckler and his colleagues said. When oceans absorb all that heat it keeps the surface from getting even warmer from the heat- trapping gases spewed by the burning of coal, oil and gas, the scientists said. The warmer the oceans get, the less heat they can absorb and the more heat stays in the air and on land surface, the study's co-au- thor, Chris Forest at Penn- sylvania State University, said. "These finding have po- tentially serious conse- quences for life in the oceans as well as for pat- terns of ocean circulation, storm tracks and storm in- tensity," said Oregon State University marine sciences professor Jane Lubchenco, the former chief of the Na- tional Oceanic and Atmo- spheric Administration. SCIENCE Study: Man-made heat in oceans doubled since 1997 TIMOBREMER—LAWRENCELIVERMORENATIONALLABORATORY This image shows Pacific and Atlantic meridional sections showing upper-ocean warming for the past six decades (1955-2011). Red colors indicate a warming (positive) anomaly and blue colors indicate a cooling (negative) anomaly. By Lisa Lerer and Nancy Benac The Associated Press CHARLESTON, S.C. With just two weeks to go before the first votes of the 2016 race for president, Demo- crats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders engaged in their most contentious de- bate match-up to date, un- derscoring their tightening primary race as the Iowa caucuses draw near. The pair tangled repeat- edly Sunday night over who's tougher on gun con- trol and Wall Street and how to shape the future of health care in America. Their heated rhetoric highlighted the central question fueling the in- creasingly competitive pri- mary race: Will the Sanders passion beat out the Clinton practicality? While Clinton remains the national front-runner, grassroots enthusiasm for Sanders' outsider candi- dacy and his unapologet- ically liberal message has imperiled her lead in Iowa and expanded his advan- tage in New Hampshire. "What this is really about is not the rational way to go forward," Sanders said as he responded to Clinton's argument that his health care plans would reignite a divisive political battle. "It's whether we have the guts to stand up to the private in- surance companies." Clinton derided as im- practical Sanders' ambi- tious aim to replace the country's existing employer- based system of health care insurance with one in which the government be- comes a "single payer," pro- viding coverage to all. Instead, she urged a less- sweeping action to build on President Barack Obama's health care law by work- ing to further reduce out- of-pocket costs and control spending on prescription drugs. "We have the Affordable Care Act," she said. "That is one of the greatest accom- plishments of President Obama, of the Democratic Party, and of our country." In doing so, she again cast herself as the natural successor to Obama and accused Sanders, until re- cently an independent, of being an unfaithful ally of the administration. It's a strategy aimed at locking down Democratic primary voters, particu- larly minorities, who make up a huge swath of the par- ty's base and remain de- voted to Obama. But it's a riskier approach in a gen- eral election, where as her party's nominee, Clinton would have to woo voters who question whether they feel more economically se- cure after Obama's eight years in office. Sanders dismissed the idea that he'd endanger Obama's hard-won victo- ries, insisting: "No one is tearing this up. We're go- ing to go forward." Clinton also rapped Sanders for voting repeat- edly with the National Rifle Association while in Con- gress, welcoming his week- end reversal to support leg- islation that would deny gun manufacturers legal immunity. She rattled off a list of provisions that she said Sanders had supported in line with the NRA. Sanders, in turn, said Clinton's assertions were "very disingenuous" and pointed to his lifetime rat- ing of a D- from the NRA. The debate over gun con- trol took on a special impor- tance given the event was just blocks from the Eman- uel African Methodist Epis- copal Church, where nine parishioners were killed during Bible study last sum- mer. Clinton has made the issue a central theme of her campaign, citing it as one of the major differences be- tween the candidates. The two tangled over fi- nancial policy, too, with Sanders suggesting Clin- ton won't be tough enough on Wall Street given the big contributions and speaking fees she's accepted from the nation's financial firms. Clinton, in turn, faulted Sanders' past votes to dereg- ulate financial markets and ease up on federal oversight. DEMOCRATIC DEBATE In tightening race, it's passion versus practicality MIC SMITH — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. speak during a break at the Democratic presidential debate at the Gaillard Center on Sunday in Charleston, S.C. By Jill Colvin The Associated Press WEST DES MOINES, IOWA It's the No. 1 question headed into the primary season: Does Donald Trump merely have fans, or does the national front- runner for the Republican presidential nomination have voters who will mo- bilize come caucus day? The definitive answer won't arrive until first- to-vote Iowa heads to the polls on Feb. 1, but inter- views with dozens of vot- ers, political operatives, party leaders and cam- paign volunteers in the past week paint a mixed picture of Trump's efforts to make sure they do. Even some of the bil- lionaire real-estate mo- gul's most ardent backers wonder whether the po- litical novice has the kind of ground game needed to ensure supporters — es- pecially those new to tak- ing part in a caucus — can navigate a process that isn't as easy as casting a ballot. But many believe that even if Trump is falling short when it comes to building a get-out-the- vote effort, his supporters are so enthusiastic that it won't much matter. "I have a feeling we're going to actually do bet- ter than the polls are say- ing because there's a move- ment," Trump told sup- porters in suburban Des Moines last week, dismiss- ing suggestions the thou- sands who pack his rallies won't make it out on cau- cus night. "I don't know, maybe they won't," he added. "But it seems crazy because some of those people were waiting on line for seven hours in the cold." Q ue st ions about Trump's turnout effort are magnified by his place alongside Texas Sen. Ted Cruz atop pref- erence polls in Iowa. Re- publican leaders in the state largely agree that Cruz, popular with the state's politically savvy evangelical Christians and social conservatives, has the most powerful get-out-the-vote opera- tion among the GOP can- didates for president — complete with an army of out-of-state volunteers housed in dormitories. "Normally, I at least know the country chairs and I see some organiza- tion," said Gwen Ecklund, chair of the Republican Party in Crawford County, who said Trump staffers weren't doing as much as other campaigns. Question: Does Trump have fans, or voters? 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