Temperature dramatically fell in Atlantic Ocean's patch near the equator. Scientists warn...

Scientists have been baffled by the dropping temperature in a large part of the Atlantic Ocean, which is near the equator.

Even though this cold area has now started warming up, scientists are clueless about what led to the dramatic cooling.

The cold patch of the Atlantic Ocean, which is between the stretch of ocean which spans several degrees north and south of the equator, was formed in early June after remaining the warmest for monthsin more than 40 years.

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Speaking to Live Science, postdoctoral research associate at the University of Miami in Florida, Franz Tuchen, said that it is known that the region has been swinging between cold and warm phases in the last few years, however, the rate at which it moved from record high to low is "really unprecedented".

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"We are still scratching our heads as to what's actually happening," said Michael McPhaden, who is a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and is overseeing an array of buoys in the tropics which gave gathered real-time data related to the cold patch, while speaking to Live Science.

"It could be some transient feature that has developed from processes that we don't quite understand," he added.

Here's how temperatures dramatically changed on the sea surface

In the eastern equatorial Atlantic, the sea surface temperatures were the highest in February and March when they went beyond 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) and those months became the warmest on record since 1982.

In June, the temperatures began falling mysteriously and it became the coolest in late July when the temperature reached 77 F (25 C), wrote Tuchen recently in ablog post.

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In the forecasts, the cooling event appeared to be on the verge of becoming an Atlantic Niña, which is a regional climate pattern that tends to increase rainfall across western Africa. In his climate pattern, the rainfall decreases in northeastern Brazil along with other countries near the Gulf of Guinea, like Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon.

This phenomenon has not occurred since 2013, and the scientists would have declared that there is Atlantic Niña if colder temperatures had persisted till the end of August.

In recent weeks, the cold pocket of water has warmed up so "the verdict is already quite certain that it's not gonna be classified as Atlantic Niña," Tuchen said.

(With inputs from agencies)