The warm waters along the Gulf Coast are part of what draws people to the area and its many beaches. But there is such a thing as being too warm — and the Gulf of Mexico is reaching that point.
See the chart below. It shows how much heat is in the ocean over time for the Gulf. The red line is 2024 and the blue line is the average of the last decade.
The Gulf is now the warmest in modern records. According to from Brian McNoldyA climatologist at the University of Miami, who created the chart. A dip will feel like a bath: According to recent reports, the average surface temperature is close to 90 degrees Measurement of sea surface temperature.
“It’s out of range from the kind of variability we’ve seen [at least] For the past 75 years or so Ben Kirtmandirector of the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, a joint initiative of the University of Miami and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), told Vox. “It can be scary stuff.”
These record temperatures are a signal of a more widespread warming trend across the North Atlantic that has increased over the past year. It’s still not entirely clear what’s causing this, although scientists suspect a combination of factors, including climate change – which raises baseline ocean temperatures – as well as the lingering effects of El Niño, natural climate variability and possibly a Volcanic eruptions.
Gulf temperatures last only a few degrees warmer than historical averages. Yet scientists are increasingly cautious that these degrees matter — a lot. Not only sea life is at risk, but cities full of people.
The double punch of extreme ocean heat
There are two main ways that a tropical Gulf threatens coastal communities, and both are related to hurricanes. The first is straightforward: hurricanes like heat. They need warm water, and the moist, rising air that produces it. That air mixes with storm clouds and can eventually form a hurricane.
Warmer waters can lead to stronger hurricanes that accelerate faster, giving coastal areas less time to prepare.
Now let’s go back to the chart above. It is not showing the surface temperature, but measuring the amount of thermal energy across different layers of the ocean. It’s this energy that can fuel large storms, Kirtman said. Strong winds stir the ocean, bringing deep, cold water to the surface. It can slow down a hurricane. But when the water is warm below the surface, he said, the hurricane can intensify quickly—that is, its winds can increase to about 35 miles per hour in less than 24 hours.
Then there’s the other problem: Warm water kills coral, which protects coastal communities from hurricanes. These natural structures are large enough to dampen waves hitting the shore, reducing the threat of storm surges. (Experiencing ocean heat causes polyps — the tiny creatures that make up a piece of coral — to lose a type of symbiotic algae that lives inside them. Without the algae, the coral turns white, or “bleached,” and can starve to death. )
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In other words, a warming gulf can create fierce, rapidly intensifying hurricanes and weaken our natural defenses against them. Good stuff.
This year has seen five named storms so far, including Hurricane Beryl – which became the fastest Category 5 storm on record. It’s a hurricane that scientists hope is caused by ocean warming.
“We’re seeing the climatological characteristics of an active season,” said Matthew Rosenkrans, chief hurricane season forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. said In a statement earlier this month. “Sea surface temperatures remain unusually high.”
Hurricane season in the Atlantic typically begins around September 10, According to NOAA, and the agency, expect a total of 17 to 24 named storms — above average, but likely the new normal.
A strangely cold place that surprises scientists
The Gulf, and the North Atlantic Ocean more broadly, is unusually warm. That much is clear. But there’s also a strange blob of cold water around the equator, which has fueled it Conflicting, confusing headlines Which means the Atlantic is cooling.
The surface temperature of this stretch of ocean went from unusually warm to unusually cool in a few months starting this spring, for reasons that scientists still can’t fully explain. Franz “Philippe” TuchenAn oceanographer at the University of Miami. The rapid change is “very unusual,” he told Vox.
Yet this cooling is only in one area—somewhere between central Africa and Brazil—and it’s already fading. “It’s not the whole Atlantic, and it’s just a temporary cooling,” Tuchen said.
Not only is the impact fading, but the blob is below the “major development zone” for hurricanes — the band of ocean where storms typically form. So it probably won’t have a big impact during hurricane season. That bandLike much of the Gulf and North Atlantic, it’s very, very warm now. And in the long run, barring dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, it will likely get warmer.
