Atlantic Ocean Is Off The Charts Warm: Not The Apocalypse, But Something To Worry About

Chart shows how warm the North Atlantic is. All the blue
squiggles are average water temperatures over the
past years since 1982. Red line is this year. 

 For at least a month or two now, scientists have been astonished by how warm much of the Atlantic Ocean is. 

As of last Wednesday, the average temperature of the North Atlantic (everything north of the Equator) was 73 degrees. The average temperature in the ocean over the past three decades was 71 degrees. 

Two degrees doesn't sound like much of a difference, but in terms of oceans this is huge. It represents an enormous amount of potential energy that can produce larger, wetter storms, heat waves, dangerously high humidity or other weather extremes. 

The Atlantic Ocean is so warm that something very rare is happening. The area of the eastern Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Africa, is a zone where some of the strongest hurricanes get their start. This pretty much always waits until August and September when that stretch of ocean finally becomes warm enough to develop wannabe hurricanes. 

In the past few days, a disturbance has emerged into the ocean off the west coast of Africa. The ocean water is way warmer than it should be in June. It's more typical of September. The National Hurricane Center says the system is almost certain to become a tropical storm or hurricane this week.  

It's still unknown whether this future tropical storm will affect the Caribbean islands and eventually the United States, or just go out to sea and miss everything. 

A hurricane originating in this areas is almost unheard of.   You do occasionally get tropical storms and hurricanes in June, but they almost always form in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, or sometimes just off the southeastern United States coast.  

The potential hurricane is just one symptom of how off-kilter the Atlantic Ocean is right now. 

IN PERSPECTIVE

I've heard a variety of way-too-alarmist reactions to this hot Atlantic Ocean water. "It's a tipping point! It'll make the world go into an extreme climate calamity!  

It's true that climate change is contributing to the Atlantic Ocean's newfound heat. All of the world's other oceans are warming as well. 

What seems to be going on is a whole bunch of influences are conspiring to bring the Atlantic Ocean to a figurative boiling point.  Besides climate change, there's the arrival of El Nino.

 Michael Mann, a scientist who is never shy about sounding the alarm about climate change, is urging calm with the latest news about warming oceans.  He says climate change is one factor raising ocean temperatures, but there are plenty more influences, such as the recent onset of El Nino.

"The warming is steady & that's bad enough. Hyping the warming as we had into an El Nino event is as bad as deniers who hyped the cooling their the '00s and early '10s from extended La Nina events," Mann tweeted

Other factors contributing to the Atlantic Ocean's recent quick heat up include below normal levels of dust from the Sahara Desert blowing out over the ocean. 

That dust regularly blows westward off the African continent out over the oceans, where it blocks a bit of sunlight. That reduction in solar energy helps keep the water temperature in check. But with so little dust this year. the sun can blast down on the ocean, rapidly heating it. 

Another influence might be new regulations requiring ships to burn cleaner fuel.  That has led to a sharp decrease in sulfur dioxide emissions. Like African dust, the sulfur pollution dims the sun. With the drop in pollution from ships, the sun over the Atlantic shines ever brighter. 

There's yet one more influence: The Azores High.  According to Vox:

"The Azores High is a semi-permanent region of high atmospheric pressure that sits over the North Atlantic. This creates a sinking column of air that generates trade winds blowing east to west over the water. Wind wind moves over water it leads to more evaporation which cools the surface of the water, similar to how a breeze can cool your skin when  you sweat."

Lately, the Azores High has been weak, so the trade winds have been weak. Which means that cooling influence is diminished. 

With all these things going on, you can see how the study of climate change can be almost impossibly complex.  Dozens of factors work in concert with, or against climate change, to make predicting just how it will play out a challenge to say the least.  

Given all these factors, I doubt the Atlantic Ocean will keep heating up forever without pause. More African dust, an eventual end to El Nino might well cause a temporary Atlantic ocean water cooling. The operative word here being temporary. 

Climate change will inexorably make ocean temperatures rise, if it fits and starts. The current warmth in the Atlantic Ocean would be impossible without climate change, even if everything else cooperated to cause a spike in water temperatures. 

The current situation in the Atlantic Ocean is probably a foretaste of an ugly future.