Marine Heatwaves Spread Across Oceans, Tripling Atmospheric Extremes

Recent studies and reports highlight a sharp increase in extreme weather and ocean warming due to climate change. Marine heat waves, once rare, now affect over 40% of the ocean surface, causing devastating impacts such as coral bleaching, disrupted marine food chains, and widespread ecological damage, including significant declines in species like Northern shrimp and North Pacific humpback whales. Simultaneously, atmospheric planetary wave events linked to extreme summer weather have tripled in frequency over the past 75 years, leading to persistent heat waves, droughts, and flooding. This phenomenon, known as quasi-resonant amplification, causes atmospheric waves to become stuck, resulting in prolonged extreme weather patterns. Scientists attribute these changes primarily to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions and warn that without significant emission reductions, such extreme events will worsen. The combined effects of warming oceans and atmospheric changes are intensifying storms, raising sea levels through thermal expansion, and fundamentally altering global climate systems.