Today's episode covers three very different corners of the ocean world: a heat record that just broke months ahead of schedule, a career profile of the man now running one of Florida's best-known sea turtle hospitals, and a decade-long tracking study that overturns a textbook assumption about where baby sea turtles actually go.
First, ocean heat just broke a record. Between August 22 and 24, 2026, the world's oceans hit an average surface temperature of 21.10°C, 69.98°F, beating the previous record set in March 2024. Ocean temperatures normally peak in spring, so a record set in late August is a sign of just how much strain El Nino and long-term warming are putting on ocean systems. We walk through what that heat is already doing: a PNAS study linking marine heatwaves to child malnutrition in fishing-dependent coastal communities, and a call from public health researchers to treat ocean heat the way we already treat heatwaves on land, plus a wildcard finding on how warming reshapes marine life by region rather than shrinking it uniformly.
Second, an Ocean People Profile: meet Andy Dehart, President and CEO of Loggerhead Marinelife Center. His path started at age 4, snorkeling with his father, and ran through more than 25 years building and running major public aquariums, including 19 years at the National Aquarium and a stint at Miami's Frost Museum of Science, working hands-on with the same hawksbill, green, and loggerhead sea turtles his organization now treats and releases.
Third, we dig into sea turtles' "lost years," the long-mysterious stretch after hatchlings vanish into open water. University of Central Florida researchers tagged 131 juvenile turtles across four species over more than a decade in the Gulf of Mexico, and the data overturns the old assumption that young turtles just drift with the current. They found the opposite: turtles actively navigate and steer away from shorelines, a discovery that traces back to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill and is now informing new critical habitat protections.
Takeaways:
Ocean surface temperatures hit a record 21.10°C (69.98°F) between August 22 and 24, 2026, beating the previous record set in March 2024, an unusual late-summer record that Copernicus attributes to an intensifying El Nino layered on long-term warming.
A PNAS study links marine heatwaves to higher rates of child stunting, wasting, and mortality in fishing-dependent coastal communities where seafood is a primary protein source.
Researchers from Adelaide University and the University of Hong Kong argue marine heatwaves deserve the same public health response as land heatwaves, citing intensified storms, contaminated seafood, food insecurity, and rising eco-anxiety and grief in coastal communities.
A University of Louisiana at Lafayette-led study of 23,000+ marine mollusk species projects most will shrink by 2100, but some groups, notably Arctic cephalopods, are projected to grow larger, showing warming reshapes marine life by region rather than shrinking it uniformly.
Andy Dehart became President and CEO of Loggerhead Marinelife Center in 2022 after more than 25 years building and running major public aquariums, including 19 years at the National Aquarium, and hands-on work with hawksbill, green, and loggerhead sea turtles.
UCF researchers tagged 131 juvenile sea turtles (94 green, 28 Kemp's ridley, 5 loggerhead, 4 hawksbill) across the Gulf of Mexico from 2011 to 2022, proving young turtles actively navigate and avoid shorelines rather than passively drifting with ocean currents.
The sea turtle tracking research traces its origin to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and is now informing proposals for new critical habitat protections for green sea turtles under the Endangered Species Act.
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