News Release

Extreme marine heat has become the "new normal", in analysis of data from 1870 onwards - with 57% of the ocean surface recording 2019 temperatures once considered extreme

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

Synoptic frequency of extreme marine heat across ocean basins from 1900–2019

image: Fraction of the ocean surface annually experiencing extreme heat, grouped by a, Northern Hemisphere and b, Southern Hemisphere and Indian ocean basins. The Point of No Return (PoNR) occurs when each series surpasses and remains above 50% (dashed grey line), or when the historical baseline of extreme heat becomes ‘normal’. This first occurs in 1998 in the South Atlantic basin and for the global ocean occurs in 2014. view more 

Credit: Tanaka and Van Houtan, 2022, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Extreme marine heat has become the "new normal", in analysis of data from 1870 onwards - with 57% of the ocean surface recording 2019 temperatures once considered extreme

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Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000007   

Article Title: The recent normalization of historical marine heat extremes

Author Countries: U.S.A.

Funding: This study was supported by the generous contributions of members, visitors, and donors to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


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