RILEY KAMINER: I spent the day at the beach with my partner a couple weeks ago. You can feel the difference in the water. Riley Kaminer, an On Point listener from Miami, says it’s not just a reading on a marine thermometer. One weather buoy in Florida’s shallow and enclosed Manatee Bay recently measured water temperatures at an astonishing 101.1% Fahrenheit. More than 40% of the oceans are registering surface temperatures never seen in recorded history, and that figure is expected to pass 50% by September. MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: On land in many parts of the world now, heat is shimmering off the pavement and forest fires are burning. Ted Firkins, chief of Interpretation and Education at Biscayne National Park. Peter de Menocal, oceanographer and paleoclimatologist and director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Katey Lesneski, marine biologist and Monitoring Coordinator for NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Mission: Iconic Reefs.

Today, On Point: Our planet in hot water. “This year is unprecedented in terms of how early the bleaching started and the absolute temperature of the ocean that we’re recording, and that is well backed up by what I see every single day that I’m on the reefs this summer,” Katey Lesneski, geo-biologist, says.

If warm seawater is here to stay, what will it mean for all that lives in the ocean and on land? The waters off Florida and across the Caribbean are reaching record-breaking temperatures.

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