In late July, a fierce ocean heat wave ratcheted up temperatures in Florida’s coastal waters to unprecedented highs. One buoy bobbing in shallow, turbid Manatee Bay logged a measurement of 38.3˚ Celsius (101˚ Fahrenheit). That may be the highest temperature ever recorded in the ocean. A week later, that surge in ocean heat had ebbed. But South Florida’s denizens are still in hot water.
And it’s not just that June and July’s brutally hot water temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean are linked to shockingly hot temperatures on land. This summer, Miami’s heat index, a measure of air temperature and humidity, soared to a record-breaking streak of nearly two months, reaching a daily heat index of 38° C (100° F).
It’s not even that such ocean heat waves are becoming the new normal, as swells of heat more and more frequently crest atop the baseline warming of the global ocean due to climate change (SN: 2/1/22). Florida’s waters may have hit a record high, but July saw widespread ocean heat waves around the world, from the North Atlantic Ocean to the eastern equatorial Pacific to the Southern Indian Ocean.
“The global oceans have warmed up so much … we’re seeing a ratcheting up that’s unprecedented in the modern instrument record, and maybe in the last 125,000 years,” Kirtman says. “It’s really quite remarkable.”
2023-08-09 06:00:00
Original from www.sciencenews.org