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W
eather across the U.S. this year has pingponged from waves of intense cold and snow in the East Coast and Midwest, followed by sudden warming, to heavy rain and a record heatwave on the West Coast–which melted winter snow in the Sierras too fast and too early, ensuring less water flows to Los Angeles. Unfortunately, one of the trends that has been consistent is rising ocean temperatures.
Over the past few weeks, labs such as the European Union Copernicus Climate Change Service determined that the average surface temperature of global seas in March was 69.75 degrees Fahrenheit (20.97 Celsius), the second-highest level ever recorded. And in California, researchers at Scripps recently found that the typically chilly Pacific is also hotter, clocking in at 68.5 degrees, 7.7 degrees above the average for mid-April.
What those findings mean is that conditions are again ideal for El Niño: a climate pattern that drives up global surface temperatures. That makes it likely that 2026 will continue a streak of global heat records that’s persisted for over a decade, with each subsequent year being hotter than the one that preceded it. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said this month that March 2026 was the hottest on record in the contiguous United States, capping a 12-month period that was also the hottest ever.
