Bill Weir: The Oceans ‘Are Getting Higher and Bigger as the Earth Overheats Under a Blanket of Fossil Fuel Pollution’

EXCERPT:

WEIR: “This is not your comfort on vacation but if you just just for perspective Peterson Key down in Florida Bay water temperature is about 92 degrees, right, so this is the average of the entire globe mass all the oceans Planet Earth now just shy of 70 degrees Fahrenheit and that is off the charts hot compared to the 30-year average of just recent generations as well that’s just shy of 21 degrees Celsius and this is the opening attractions Sara because El Nino what may be a super El Nino, this is a natural warming cycle in the Pacific, that’s just kicking off. We’re going to feel the real wrath of that come August or so, but the oceans really cover a multitude of humanity’s sins when it comes to climate change, 90 percent of the extra heat is absorbed by the oceans but now they are getting warm enough for us to notice. And the effects of these of course it fuels heat waves on land, fiercer storms on land, extreme rainfall and flooding the rain bombs that usually come with El Nino’s headed for California in the west this — this summer, mass bleaching of coral reefs, of course at a certain temperature the symbiosis between these little critters that create coral the nurseries of the sea that breaks down and then there is sea level rise, comes both from melting glaciers on land but also water expands as it heats up so just that the oceans themselves are getting higher and bigger as the earth overheats under a blanket of fossil fuel pollution.”