Climate change has sent the water temperature of the Mediterranean Sea up by 1.5°C over the last 30 years, according to a study released by the National Observatory of Athens’ Meteo unit.
The news follows recent Meteo findings that climate change has led to an average temperature increase of 1.5°C over the last three decades in Greece with northern parts of the country affected more.
According to Meteo scientists who assessed data collected by Europe’s Copernicus satellite-based Earth observation program from 1991 to 2020, the increase in water temperature in the last 30 years has surpassed the average earth temperature rise in the last 200 years with Europe being the fastest-warming continent on the planet.
Photo credit: Meteo.gr
Scientists are warning that the rise in sea water temperatures will endanger marine ecosystems.
More specifically, the study published in the Atmosphere journal found that sea water temperatures in the Thracian Sea, the central Ionian Sea and seawaters south of Crete and Rhodes increased by 2.0°C in the period under review.
The least temperature change was reported in the Central and Southern Aegean Sea.
Indicative of the temperature difference, on August 15, 2024, the Mediterranean Sea water surface temperatures reached 28.9°C, a record high attributed to climate change and the El Niño phenomenon.
According to Copernicus, the global-average temperature in the past 12 months (July 2023 – June 2024) is the highest on record, at 0.76°C above the 1991-2020 average and 1.64°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.
Additionally, a study carried out in 2020 reveals that the frequency of marine heatwaves has increased 20-fold due to human-induced global warming.
