Sea horses in Goleta. Sea turtles at the islands. A whale shark in the sanctuary. Is our slice of South Coast ocean turning into a tropical coral reef? No, not by a long shot, but the Santa Barbara Channel is indeed changing.

Back in fall 2014, a dramatic and prolonged marine heat wave coined “The Blob” crept out of the Pacific and slowly spread along the West Coast. At the same time, a strong El Niño was gathering steam. It peaked in 2015 and eventually subsided in 2016, but the unusually high ocean temperatures brought on by these two extreme events never really went away.

The Santa Barbara Channel sits at a unique and life-rich transition zone, where cold water from Alaska meets warm water from the equator. Historically, it’s enjoyed a cool but comfortable average temperature of 16-17 degrees Celsius (or 60.8-62.6 degrees Fahrenheit). During the height of the Blob-El Niño anomaly, temperatures got as high as 22.5°C (72.5°F), and as recently as 2018 were hitting 21°C (69.8°F). While the overall average has levelled back out, it’s still 1-2°C above what it was before.