New UN climate report, in addition to documenting that Earth's oceans are getting hotter and higher at a previously underestimated acc rat of acceleration, the report also discusses a relatively new phenomenon in the oceans: marine heat waves.
"It's sort of remarkable that prior to 2012 [or] 2013, nobody had thought about heat waves in the ocean," says Andrew Pershing, chief scientific officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland, Maine. "And then, in 2012 we had a huge event here in the Northwest Atlantic, and the Gulf of Maine was right at the center of it. It was a real surprise."

The abnormally hot water affected animals that live off the coast of Maine, including lobster and other creatures that are crucial to the local fishing economy. What's more, it quickly became clear that the state wasn't alone.
"Subsequently, these kind of heat wave events have kind of popped up all over the ocean," Pershing says. "We've actually had three major heat waves in the Gulf of Maine - 2012, 2016 and 2018 - and now we're looking at repeat heat waves in the northern Pacific; Australia's had some repeat heat waves. So it's really becoming a part of the conversation in oceanography."
"It's kind of an emerging issue," Barrett says. "The report finds that these heat waves have doubled in frequency since the 1980s, and are increasing in intensity."

That's a big deal for coastal communities whose economies rely on fish and other seafood.

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