Thursday April 17, 2025
Oceanographic —
Global warming has led to a threefold increase in the number of days each year that the ocean experiences extreme heat at the surface, a new study has found; highlighting that extreme marine heatwaves such as this have tripled over the past 80 years.
Averaged across the globe, in the 1940s the sea surface typically experienced about 15 days of extreme heat annually. Today that number has jumped to nearly 50 days per year.
Global warming is responsible for almost half of the occurrence of marine heatwaves – periods in which the sea surface temperatures rise well above normal for an extended time.
The study, published by a team of scientists from the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, the University of Reading, International Space Science Institute, and the University of the Balearic Islands, also found that rising global temperatures are making extreme ocean heat events last longer and become more intense.