The Ocean Gets Heat Waves Too, and They Are Threatening Marine Ecosystems

In 2011, Dan Smale was a post-doc in western Australia working on a kelp forest ecology project when water temperatures in the region suddenly spiked. Kelp forests, sea grass meadows, coral reefs, and many of the animals that call these ecosystems home began to die off. For several months, Smale and his colleagues tracked the impacts of the record-breaking water temperatures in western Australia, and began to wonder just how widespread marine heat waves are, and what effects they might be having on marine ecosystems elsewhere in the world.

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