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(CNN) - In the South Pacific Ocean east of New Zealand, satellite images show a massive area of ocean water at temperatures well above average.
The water in the area is about 5 degrees Celsius (about 9 degrees Fahrenheit) "warmer than average for latitude and time of year," said James Renwick, professor and head of the Faculty of Geography, Environment and Science of Earth from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.
The hot spot on the Pacific surface is detectable from space and is the largest area of water temperature above average on Earth at this time.
The sea area is approximately one million square kilometers (400,000 square miles), covering an area of the ocean similar to the size of Venezuela (912,050 square kilometers) and larger than the size of Texas (695,000 square kilometers).
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"The surface of the ocean does not vary much," Renwick said. “One grade (Celsius) is big. So, five degrees is huge. ”
It is especially rare to see in such a large area, but scientists say that global climate change is making these phenomena more common.
Warm spot caused by recent weather
"The surface of the ocean does what the air above tells you," Renwick said.
That area has received a lot of sunlight, and there has been a lack of west wind to blow the warm area that looms over the surface of the sea, he said.
The water appears as a large red spot on a satellite map created by the Climate Reanalyzer operated by the Climate Change Institute of the University of Maine. That map traces the temperature of the ocean surface of the world.
"If it's hot somewhere, it can be cold somewhere else," Renwick said. Just east of the abnormally warm area, the water is approximately 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) colder than average.
"There is a pretty cold patch," he said.
It is not clear how deep the warm area is, but Renwick estimated that it is not more than two dozen meters deep, since it would take a huge amount of energy to heat such a large volume of water in a few weeks.
Those warm patches occur at various points around the world's oceans. A few months ago, oceanographers observed a similar warm patch of the ocean in front of Alaska, which Renwick attributed to the loss of Arctic sea ice.
Global climate change is driving the trend of sea heat waves
The heat wave has had a direct effect on the aquatic ecosystem there, as there are many highly sensitive fish even at small temperature changes.
"Marine life will have adapted," Renwick said. "So other species that like warmer water will have moved."
Previous marine heat waves have caused massive death of marine invertebrates, coral bleaching and sustained loss of seaweed forests, according to a 2018 study in the journal Nature .
That study showed that from 1925 to 2016, there was a 54% increase in the number of days of marine heat waves each year. This was because heat waves increased both in frequency and duration, and the highest level of activity of maritime heat waves is in the North Atlantic.
Between 1982 and 2016, scientists saw a more alarming trend as the number of heatwave days on the global ocean surface had increased by 82%.
The article said the data could "be largely explained by increases in average ocean temperatures, suggesting that we can expect greater increases in the days of marine heat waves under continuous global warming."
Pacific Ocean