Falls in whale sightings, rare seabirds appearing – is something unusual happening in the Southern Ocean?

Humpback whale sightings in southwest Australia have collapsed to sixty percent below normal, while rare albatrosses and petrels are appearing thousands of kilometers from their usual homes in the Southern Ocean, many in poor condition. The Conversation reports a marine heatwave persisting since February in remote ocean regions may be disrupting the food supply these migratory species depend on—a scenario with historical precedent. Between twenty fourteen and twenty sixteen, a massive marine heatwave called 'the Blob' devastated the North Pacific, causing kelp forests to collapse, starfish to die en masse, and seabirds and whales to starve. The current Southern Ocean warming, happening in some of the planet's fastest-warming waters, could produce a similar cascade, though scientists lack the long-term monitoring systems needed to understand what's happening or predict future ecosystem shifts as climate change makes these extreme events more frequent and severe.

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