{"id":367731,"date":"2026-06-19T22:48:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T22:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/367731\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T22:48:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T22:48:38","slug":"aquarium-of-the-pacific-warns-of-warming-water-as-ceo-accelerates-role-in-environmental-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/367731\/","title":{"rendered":"Aquarium of the Pacific warns of warming water as CEO accelerates role in environmental knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>DNY Photo
\nMembers of the media get a look at the Ocean Science Center\u2019s \u201cScience on a Sphere\u201d exhibit at the Aquarium of the Pacific. The huge globe using real-time satellite data to reflect warming ocean temperatures. <\/p>\n

The President and CEO of the Aquarium of the Pacific made it clear this week that he views the role of this internationally recognized center as not only a place to put the ocean on display, but also a forum for environmental knowledge to protect it for years to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Aquarium already does amazing education and conservation work,\u201d CEO Jeff Flocken acknowledged at a major press conference this week, but said he wanted to expand the institution\u2019s role in the knowledge economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy goal is to have us double down on that while continuing to expand in those directions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To that end, Flocken this week invited the nation\u2019s top weather experts into the Honda Vision Center at the Aquarium to explain how hotter weather associated with a growing \u201cEl Ni\u00f1o\u201d could have severe implications for the world\u2019s oceans, especially for the oceans and the blue economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re (AofP) already known as a fantastic entertainment facility,\u201d Flocken told ENE after the event, saying, \u201cpeople come here with their families to be inspired,\u201d he said, while noting that the Aquarium has expanded its existing conservation work and educational resources.<\/p>\n

\"\"Jeff Flocken, President & CEO of the Aquarium of the Pacific.
Courtesy photo<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like us to continue doing that and be a voice beyond Long Beach and Southern California,\u201d said Flocken. \u201cI want people to understand more about our oceans and what\u2019s going on in them.\u201dEarlier, inside the Vision Center, he introduced experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a scientist from NOAA\u2019s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, and two Aquarium staff members to discuss a developing El Ni\u00f1o and the \u201canticipated effects of warming water on ocean life.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, Flocken introduced the Ocean Science Center within the Aquarium, where satellite data from NOAA and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are beamed directly into an elevated globe called Science on a Sphere\u00ae to reflect real-time warming of the earth\u2019s oceans.Flocken also explained how the Aquarium is in training to study \u201cthe health impacts of marine animals\u201d caused by the warming oceans.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a non-profit organization committed to ocean conservation and education, the Aquarium of the Pacific is focused on programs that help marine life as well as those that make science accessible to the public,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Flocken said as impacts of the heat ramp up, the Aquarium is preparing to \u201cserve a pivotal role in directly responding to aid wildlife in need of rescue, as well as providing rehabilitation care and sanctuary for impacted animals when needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have staff on the water each day recording sightings of marine life so we can track population calculations and anomalies,\u201d the Aquarium CEO said.<\/p>\n

Dr. Ariel Cohen, a meteorologist who runs the Los Angeles Bureau of the National Weather Service, explained what El Ni\u00f1o looked like, which is a giant red \u2018 blob \u2018 gathering over the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo by David N. Young
National Weather Service Meterologist Dr. Ariel Cohen points out a huge red blob gathering in the Pacific Ocean, warming the oceans and preparing for El Nino. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to show how warm water temperatures over the equatorial Pacific can play a huge role in the types of weather patterns that we will see across California,\u201d said Cohen.<\/p>\n

Under normal conditions, an area of warm waters is blown westward by naturally occurring trade winds, followed by an area of cooler waters just off the coast of Central and South America.<\/p>\n

Cohen used the Vision Center\u2019s huge 130-foot video screen to show diagrams to illustrate the formation of El Ni\u00f1o weather patterns and how they indicate warming waters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are already seeing the conditions favoring this El Ni\u00f1o pattern coming to light,\u201d said Cohen.<\/p>\n

He said El Ni\u00f1o forms when trade winds slacken, causing warm waters to extend farther east, right off the coast of Mexico and northern South America, which causes jet stream energy in the atmosphere to bring disturbed weather southward across the southern U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are already seeing these warm temperatures lining up,\u201d said Cohen, and when we look at the anomalies, or the departure from normal conditions, these reds and even darker colors are showing several degrees above normal in waters pooling over equatorial waters of the Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Andrew Leising, a research oceanographer at the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, spoke directly about how the warming waters of El Nino affect the world\u2019s oceans, specifically the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

Leising demonstrated government software modeling via satellite data, designed to predict ocean temperatures using external conditions. Scientists must take into consideration that some ocean heat waves \u201clast for years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

El Ni\u00f1o, said Leising, \u201ctends to cause green heat waves, indicating very warm conditions all along the coast. If indeed it continues to form, the conditions would be like the El Ni\u00f1o in 1998 and the one in 1978, which puts these conditions in spans of 20 to 30 years.<\/p>\n

The researcher pointed out, however, that this year\u2019s marine heat wave is mostly restricted to Southern California. In addition, he said it is located \u201cfar offshore,\u201d and it is only about a third the size of the big one in 2015.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the scientist said, the impacts are still hard to predict. \u201cThe impacts of El Ni\u00f1o are always different on different years,\u201d said Leising.<\/p>\n

Brett Long, Aquarium of the Pacific vice president of animal care, birds, and marine mammals, said the Aquarium supports disaster responses affecting birds and marine mammals using organized volunteers who monitor beaches and key ocean indicators.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work with local organizations to respond to crises, assist with wildlife surveys in search and recovery efforts, and collect impacted wildlife for them to receive the care they need,\u201d said Long.<\/p>\n

Nate Jaros, the Aquarium\u2019s VP of animal care, fish, and invertebrates, said the warming waters could bring \u201can increase in tropical or warm subtropical species, which could include increased shark sightings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may see rare visitors like yellow-fin tuna, mahimahi, yellow-bellied sea snakes, seahorses, pelagic red crabs, and in very rare cases, even whale sharks,\u201d said Jaros.<\/p>\n

The group also heard from Dr. Felix G. Castro, from NOAA.Flocken thanked the experts for sharing their understanding of what\u2019s happening to our oceans. \u201cWe understand there\u2019s so much more we need to know about what\u2019s currently there, and we will continue to grow in our knowledge of what we should know about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DNY Photo Members of the media get a look at the Ocean Science Center\u2019s \u201cScience on a Sphere\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-367731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}