Samples from a changing ocean
This field report is made for a desktop screen.
Samples from a changing ocean
This field report is made for a desktop screen.
The Pacific Ocean is already experiencing pronounced impacts from climate change. Since 2000, sea surface temperature anomalies [SSTs] show an overall trend of warming across the nine selected Pacific Island countries, revealing a persistent shift toward warmer conditions.
The blue highlight marks a +0.5°C sea surface temperature anomaly relative to the 0°C baseline. While not a physical threshold, it provides a consistent benchmark for comparing warming across countries and years. Frequent exceedances highlight a warming ocean and show how often unusually warm conditions occur in the record. Such conditions can contribute to marine heat stress and increase the risk of coral bleaching.
Rotate the chart to compare countries, years, and Pacific subregions. Explore where warming is most persistent, identify years with unusually high temperatures, and compare how often different countries exceed +0.5°C.
The blue highlight marks a +0.5°C sea surface temperature anomaly relative to the 0°C baseline.
Each bar represents one annual observation between 2000 and 2025.
The arrows indicate the direction in which the chart can be read. Within each subregion, countries are arranged from lower to higher average SST anomaly.