Rolling Stone: Rising Tides, Troubled Waters: The Future of Our Ocean
The blob went unnoticed at first. In the summer of 2013, a high-pressure ridge settled over a Texas-size area in the northern Pacific, pushing the sky down over the ocean like an invisible lid. The winds died down, and the water became weirdly calm. Without waves and wind to break up the surface and dissipate heat, warmth from the sun accumulated in the water, eventually raising the temperature by 5 degrees Fahrenheit — a huge spike for the ocean.
When scientists noticed this temperature anomaly in the satellite data, they had never seen anything like it. Everyone knew about heat waves on land, but in the ocean? “As the Earth heats up, the ocean is changing in very dramatic ways,” says Jane Lubchenco, a marine ecologist and former head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “It is less predictable, and we are seeing more surprises. The heat waves are one of those surprises.”