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Coastal waters in Spain stew in abnormally high temperatures
Meteorologists estimate the Spanish seas are around 4ºC warmer than they should be
The temperatures in Spain have ramped up seemingly overnight but a refreshing dip in the ocean might not do the trick this June, since the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) has published some worrying data about the heat of the seas surrounding the coasts.
Meteorologists have been tallying up the data and their latest figures show that the sea water along the Spanish Mediterranean coasts and off the Canary Islands are between 2.5 and 3.5ºC hotter than they’d expect to see this time of year. Worse again is the Cantabrian Sea, where the temperature has ramped up by 4ºC for the first time ever.
Last August, the Mediterranean Sea and parts of the Mar Menor reached an unbelievable 30ºC but this was after a summer of successive heatwaves. For the temperatures to have risen so high so early in the year is quite an anomaly, but it’s a climate concern that’s not just confined to Spain.
In fact, the waters are heating up across the globe.
When it comes to the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, the experts at Aemet believe the causes could lie in "an unusual atmospheric circulation, with weakened trade winds and a persistent anticyclone at high latitudes". As the air temperature is unusually hot, this has been transferred to maritime waters.
Aside from doing little to cool us down at the height of summer, the warming of our waters naturally wreaks havoc on the delicate marine ecosystem, which could be "seriously damaged" if the mercury continues to rise. It also acts as a warning for the excessively wet and hot few months ahead, as above-average sea temperatures indicate more intense periods of rain.
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Image: Aemet
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