Mediterranean water also breaks records

BarcelonaThe heat wave we've been experiencing in recent days has also been felt at sea. The Mediterranean region has been experiencing extreme heat for weeks due to extremely high air temperatures. According to data from the maritime service of the European Copernicus program, at the end of June, seawater temperature anomalies reached up to 5°C above average in some areas. All of this has led to Catalonia has recorded its warmest June on record, with heat records also at sea.

For example, in L'Estartit, in the Baix Empordà region, the sea surface reached a new record on June 30th: 24.54°C. This is the highest temperature recorded in June in half a century of data collection in this coastal area. This is the most reliable and reliable data collection in the entire Mediterranean.

On the same day as the Estartit record, the buoy located in Sa Dragonera, on the island of Mallorca, recorded a sea surface temperature of 30.55°C, the highest temperature recorded in June by 3°C. Data are collected (2006). And in these first days of July, sea temperatures continue to rise.

Sea temperature anomalies have been particularly large due to heat waves, drought and the longer-lasting summer environment," Justino Martínez, a researcher at the Catalan Research Institute for Marine Governance (ICATMAR) and the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM), explained to ARA. "If the temperature remains very high throughout the summer, we will suffer, because it will cause a layer of superheated water up to three or four metres deep, as happened in 2022," says Martínez, adding that this would lead to an increase in extreme weather events and damage, especially to marine flora, such as coral.

A warmer sea adds more moisture to the atmosphere, leading to stronger storms like the ones we're experiencing these days, more typical of late summer. Indeed, current sea temperatures are more typical of August. "With the warming of the water, we'll see increasingly stronger storms in summer and autumn, and likely more hailstorms on the coast as well, something that was unusual just a few years ago," he says.

Another consequence of the release of more moisture from the sea, along with higher temperatures, is the increased feeling of mugginess. The atmosphere is increasingly heavy on the coast in summer, including at night, and it makes it increasingly difficult to sleep well. In fact, tropical, muggy nights have been the norm along the entire coast in recent weeks, with several record-breaking nighttime heat records.