The ocean has absorbed the vast majority of global warming so far, but it may be reaching a limit. By the start of summer 2024, sea surface temperatures had broken records by wide margins every day for more than a year. These dizzying records are not solely because of climate change, but they also wouldn’t be possible without it.
Reporter Delger Erdenesanaa will travel up and down U.S. coastlines to show readers how extreme heat is unfolding across the ocean, and explain the lesser-known but wide-ranging effects of marine heat waves on ecosystems, fisheries, and the people who depend on them.
Erdenesanaa will also examine how the root cause of today's climate change—humans extracting and burning fossil fuels—is increasingly moving offshore. As companies explore oil and gas reserves in the ocean rather than on land, people in a growing number of countries are taking these companies to court. They seek not just to protect their own coastal communities from environmental damage, but also to protect people everywhere from further climate change.
