People gather along the La Jolla coastline as the sun sets on the horizon of the Pacific Ocean while smoke from Southern California wildfires fills the air on August 5, 2025, in San Diego, California. Kevin Carter/Getty Images

A record-breaking and astonishingly expansive marine heat wave is underway in the Pacific Ocean, stretching about 5,000 miles from the water around Japan to the West Coast of the United States. The abnormally warm “blob” of ocean water, which is getting a significant boost from human-caused global warming, is affecting the weather on land and could have ripple effects on marine life.

The hot ocean waters around Japan contributed to that country’s hottest summer on record, which featured its all-time national maximum temperature record , set on August 5, at 10

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