"This energy imbalance is the 'smoking gun' that we have been looking for," said James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and a lead author in research published online in Science Express.

The accumulated energy is likely to bring with it an increase of 0.6 degree Celsius (one degree Fahrenheit) of the Earth's median temperature by the end of the century, the researchers said.

An increase of one watt per square meter over 10,000 years would be enough to melt ice equivalent to one kilometer (0.6 mile) of ice cap.

Researchers who used satellites, data from ocean buoys and computer models for oceanic study, calculated that the Earth is holding on to 0.85 watts of energy per square meter contributing to the imbalance.

No immediate temperature increase is observed, but since the ocean stores heat in its depths, a delay occurs in human-induced, or anthropogenic, climate change.

Consequences of the time lag include a likely one degree Fahrenheit increase globally that is "already in the pipeline," researchers said. Even if such human-induced increase of gases in the air was stalled, climate temperature would rise that much over the next 25 years, researchers say.

The time lag also allows opportunities to take action that could reduce the scope of climate change before it is fully realized - provided action is taken to reduce climate forcing agents.

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