The oceans are losing their memory. That could make it harder to forecast everything from monsoons to blizzards.
Ocean “memory” is maintained in the top layer, called the mixed layer. Winds push warm surface water downward, where it mixes with water at greater depths. This layer is typically about 150 feet thick. And overall, it maintains a fairly constant temperature. When the temperature changes as the result of some major event, it can take 10 to 20 years for the change to dissipate. In other words, the ocean maintains the “memory” of what happened to it for that long.
It’s been 100 years since people discovered the existence of the colossal squid, known by its scientific name Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, when a scientist found pieces of two huge squids in a sperm whale’s stomach. Although several (mostly dead) specimens have been collected since then—including one weighing over 1,000 pounds in 2007—scientists have never managed to film one of these creatures in its natural habitat. That changed this year when researchers captured video of a baby colossal squid near the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean.
