Hot Time in the Old Ocean tonight

NYT: “See how marine heat waves are spreading across the globe.” Only a couple of times per yr do I succumb to summarizing an article in the main-stream press. This graphic was just too good to pass up. “Sea surface temperatures in 2024 broke records and about a quarter of the world’s oceans are [currently] experiencing temperatures that qualify as a marine heat wave.” I remember the infamous ‘Blob’ off my coast in the Pacific Northwest from 2014 to 2017, ‘starving millions of fish and seabirds and damaging commercial fishing.’ The widest distribution of excessive heat occured in January of 2024, but I chose to use the current representation as of May this year. “Seas off the coasts of the United Kingdom and Ireland experienced an unusually intense marine heat wave, one of the longest on record, starting in April and the temperature rise happened much earlier in the year than usual. Australia and its iconic coral reefs were recently struck by heat waves on two coasts.” Coral reefs are the poster child of the effects of warming. “About 84 percent of reefs worldwide experienced bleaching-level heat stress at some point between January 2023 and March 2025.” The Mediterranean has been warming three to five times faster than the ocean at large, with mass casualties of sponges + coral. In the Gulf of Maine, ‘the Northern shrimp population went from an estimated 27.25 billion in 2010 to 2.8 billion two years later, according to modeling by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.’ Longfin squid drawn north by warmer water apparently love shrimp as much as we do, so that shriimp numbers plummeted further to ~ 200 million. Obviously, the responsibility lies not with the squid. Just look in the mirror.