Springtime melting and retreating sea ice allowed more sunlight to reach the upper layers of the ocean, stimulating widespread blooms of algae and other tiny marine plants which form the base of the marine food chain: a sign of the rapid changes occurring in a warming Arctic.
Ángel Muñoz, a climate scientist at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory,explains what can happen when the influence of ENSO combines with the influences of other climate phenomena.