San Diego Researchers Measure The Highest Ocean Surface Temperature In A Century

"At a pier in San Diego, researchers on Wednesday recorded the warmest sea surface temperature since record-keeping began there in 1916."

"Every day, researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego collect data — by hand — from the Ellen Browning Scripps Memorial Pier."

"Wednesday's 78.6 degrees Fahrenheit at the pier surpassed a previous record of 78.4 degrees in 1931, researchers said in a statement on Thursday."

"'It really is weird,' Clarissa Anderson, a Scripps research scientist, told NPR. 'We have different records going back decades and while [our ocean water] temperature is tightly connected with the equator, we're now seeing [temperatures] stabilize at the equator while temperatures in southern California keep going up.'"

"Anderson said that it's not clear why southern California's ocean temperature patterns appear to be diverging from the equator's."