Ocean heat is off the charts, and here’s what that means for humans and ecosystems around the world — unusually hot ocean temperatures can disrupt climate patterns around the world — a slow start to the Indian monsoon, The sea of Japan is >7 o Fahrenheit (4oC) warmer than average, dwindling Arctic Sea ice, and drought in Europe,. Since mid-March 2023, Ocean temperatures have been off the charts, with the highest average levels in 40 years of satellite monitoring, and the impact is breaking through in disruptive ways around the world. The Indian Ocean’s heat is having effects on land. The Indian monsoon, closely tied to conditions in the warm Indian Ocean, has been well below its expected strength. El Niño is partly to blame. This climate phenomenon, now also developing in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, is characterized by warm waters in the central and eastern Pacific, which generally weakens trade winds in the tropics. This weakening of winds affects oceans and land around the world Underlying everything, another force at work on ocean temperatures is global warming — the continuing rising trend of sea surface and land temperatures for the past several decades as human activities have increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Sea surface temperatures have been running well above the average since satellite monitoring began.