By Simon Theuri
The global sea temperatures reached a record high in May, June and July, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says.
“The first week of July could be considered as the warmest period or the warmest week ever recorded”, with a global average temperature close to 17.24 degrees Celsius on 7 July, said Omar Baddour, Chief of Climate Monitoring at WMO.
The WMO expert added that daily June temperatures in the North Atlantic had been “dramatically high” compared to usual readings, while Antarctic sea ice levels reached their lowest extent for June since satellite observations began.
At a shocking 17 percent below average, this year’s readings broke the June 2022 record by a substantial margin and represented “a really dramatic drop in the sea ice extent in Antarctica” – some 2.6 million square kilometers of lost sea ice.
Michael Sparrow, Chief of WMO’s World Climate Research Programme, highlighted that “it really is completely unprecedented” seeing this kind of reduction in sea ice around the Antarctic.
“The Antarctic region is normally thought of as being relatively stable; it is much colder than the Arctic. We’re used to seeing these big reductions in the sea ice in the Arctic, but not in the Antarctic.”
Beyond Antarctica, the UN agency warned that the “marine heatwave” would also impact fisheries distribution and ocean ecosystems, with knock-on effects on the climate.
This is because it is not only the surface temperature of the water, but the whole ocean is becoming warmer and absorbing energy that will remain there for hundreds of years, explained WMO.
“When you have a tropical cyclone, everything is affected on the shores, including fisheries, but also including inland,” said Mr. Baddour. “With heavy precipitation that could lead to casualties, displacement of populations, and so on. So, if we say that it is a dramatic change, that also means a dramatic likelihood of extreme weather and climate events.”
Just last week, WMO announced the onset of El Niño, characterized by a warming of the Pacific Ocean. Combined with the human-induced greenhouse gas effect, the weather pattern is expected to make one of the next five years the warmest on record.
“During an El Niño year, you get higher temperatures in the atmosphere as well because heat is moving from the oceans to the atmosphere,” said Mr. Sparrow.
“We are actually at the beginning of that process, so El Niño hasn’t had as much of an effect as it is going to later in the year. So, we’re seeing these high temperatures in the North Atlantic…despite the fact that El Niño hasn’t really got going yet.”
This article was first published on Science Africa
