The ocean is no place to escape a heat wave. According to a recent condition report from the Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries, the effects of a 2014 to 2016 marine heat wave had a cascading effect with impacts that echoed from deep sea krill to shoreline restaurants.

The domino effect began with the tiny shrimp-like critters that feed the biggest animals on earth, blue whales. Looking at data collected between 2010 and 2022, scientists with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration found that the heat wave caused a notable decline in nutritious krill, and a proportional increase in less nutritious, gelatinous zooplankton in the sanctuaries off the Northern California coast. 

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Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.