And, since warm ocean waters that bring rain are moving farther north up the Pacific, While Oregon and Washington and Alaska will get rain, the jet stream is set to extend drought-like conditions to much of the southwest.
It could get so bad that there's now a very real possibility that devastating drought conditions will soon cover everywhere from Texas to California.
Warmer ocean waters, like those that absorbed the record Kelvin ocean heat wave, and the drought-like conditions they're helping to influence, are a direct consequence of climate change and global warming.
According to NOAA, global ocean temperatures were the highest ever measured for June, and the global sea surface temperature anomaly, which is the difference in sea surface temperature from its historical average, was the highest in history.
In a press release, NOAA wrote that, "For the ocean, the June global sea surface temperature was record warm, at 0.64 C (1.15 F) above the 20th century average of 16.4 C (61.5 F). This marks the first time that the monthly global ocean temperature anomaly was higher than 0.60 C (1.08 F) and surpasses the previous all-time record for any month by 0.05 C (0.09 F)."
Because of climate change and global warming, our oceans are getting warmer and warmer, shattering previous temperatures records on what seems like a daily basis.
And as our oceans continue to warm, we'll have more severe forms of weather, like the historic drought that has engulfed California.
As George Birchard points out over at Daily Kos, if our oceans continue to warm at the rates that we're seeing today, "This could be a pattern that reinforces itself leading to drought patterns not seen since the ancient Pueblo people in the southwest were forced to migrate after decades of continuous drought."
The stakes have never been higher.
Unless we start taking the actions that are needed to curb climate change right now, California and the rest of the American southwest may soon look more like the Sahara than one of the most populous regions in the U.S.
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