Scientists Are Freaking Out About Ocean Temperatures

From his office at the University of Miami, Brian McNoldy, an expert in hurricane formation, is tracking the latest temperature data from the North Atlantic with a mixture of concern and bewilderment.

For the past year, oceans around the world have been substantially warmer than usual. Last month was the hottest January on record in the world’s oceans, and temperatures have continued to rise since then. The heat wave has been especially pronounced in the North Atlantic.

“The North Atlantic has been record-breakingly warm for almost a year now,” McNoldy said. “It’s just astonishing. Like, it doesn’t seem real.”

Across the unusually warm Atlantic, in Cambridge, England, Rob Larter, a marine scientist who tracks polar ice levels, is equally perplexed.

“It’s quite scary, partly because I’m not hearing any scientists that have a convincing explanation of why it is we’ve got such a departure,” he said. “We’re used to having a fairly good handle on things. But the impression at the moment is that things have gone further and faster than we expected. That’s an uncomfortable place as a scientist to be.”

Spin the globe to the south, and the situation is similarly dire.

“The sea ice around the Antarctic is just not growing,” said Matthew England, a professor at the University of New South Wales who studies ocean currents. “The temperature’s just going off the charts. It’s like an omen of the future.”