Deep Pacific waters warmed in recent years

Oceanographic data gathered across the North Pacific in 1985 and again in 1999 indicate that the deepest waters there have been heating up.

In trans-Pacific research cruises, scientists measured the ocean’s temperature, salinity, and other properties at more than 100 sites along latitude 47°N. That route stretches from Russia’s Kuril Islands to the coast of Washington State, says Howard Freeland of the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney, British Columbia.