Mediterranean Sea Breaks Daily Temperature Record
The Mediterranean Sea reached its highest temperature on record on Thursday, breaking the previous record set in July 2023, according to Spanish researchers.
“The maximum sea surface temperature record was broken in the Mediterranean Sea yesterday… with a daily median of 28.90 degrees Celsius,” Spain’s leading institute of marine sciences announced on Friday.
The previous record occurred on July 24, 2023, with a median value of 28.71 degrees Celsius, stated Justino Martinez, a researcher at the Institut de Ciències del Mar in Barcelona and the Catalan Institute of Research for the Governance of the Sea.
“The maximum temperature on August 15 was attained on the Egyptian coast at El-Arish (31.96 degrees Celsius),” Martinez added, noting that this value is preliminary until further human checks can be carried out.
The preliminary readings for 2024 come from satellite data from the European Copernicus Observatory, with records dating back to 1982.
This means that for two successive summers, the Mediterranean has been warmer than during the exceptional summer heat wave of 2003, when a daily median was measured at 28.25 degrees Celsius on August 23—a record that had stood for 20 years.
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
