This summer’s historic heat wave in the Pacific Northwest was an ecological catastrophe.ByJulia Rosen

DECEMBER 4, 2021, 8 AM ETSHARE

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/12/extreme-heat-baking-sea-animals-alive/620904/

This article was originally published byHigh Country News

During this summer’s stifling heat wave, Robin Fales patrolled the same sweep of shore on Washington’s San Juan Island every day at low tide. The stench of rotting sea life grew as temperatures edged toward triple digits—roughly 30 degrees above average—and Fales watched the beds of kelp she studies wilt and fade. “They were bleaching more than I had ever seen,” recalls Fales, a Ph.D. candidate and marine ecologist at the University of Washington. She didn’t know if they would make it.

Never in recorded history had the Pacific Northwest experienced anything like the “heat dome” that clamped down on the region in late June 2021. Temperatures reached a withering 116 degrees Fahrenheit in Portland, Oregon…