Last week, Gulf of Mexico sea surface temperatures off Tampa Bay were outrageously hot. On July 10, the ocean temperature measure hit 93 degrees Fahrenheit (34 Celsius). By the 11th, temperatures had warmed still more. And by the 12th, ocean surfaces had hit a sweltering 95 F (35 C).

(NOAA shows extreme sea surface temperatures at Old Port in Tampa, FL. Hat tip to Michael Lowry.)

It’s pretty rare that you see ocean waters anywhere on Earth become so hot. And when you do, it’s often in places like the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf — not the Gulf of Mexico. But in the new world driven to increasingly extreme warmth by human fossil fuel emissions, the potential heat bleeding off of ocean surfaces has jumped by quite a bit.

And it’s not just true with Tampa Bay. According to Michael Lowry, a hurricane specialist at…