According to recent statistics, the world’s oceans have now endured an unprecedented year of heat, with daily temperature records being smashed.
According to statistics from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the faculty at the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, global sea surface temperatures began to shatter daily records in mid-March of last year, raising worries for marine life and extreme weather throughout the globe.
“It is astounding how much the sea surface temperature records from 2023 and 2024 were exceeded,” stated Joel Hirschi, the associate head of marine systems modelling at the National Oceanography Centre in the United Kingdom.
However, he went on to say that the records were not shocking considering that El Niño, a natural climatic phenomenon characterised by higher-than-average ocean temperatures, a string of marine heatwaves, and human-caused global warming are all contributing to the surge of sea heat.
The effects mostly affect marine life and the weather worldwide. Warming ocean waters throughout the world can intensify hurricanes and other severe weather phenomena, such as powerful heat waves and heavy rain.
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is experiencing its seventh mass bleaching event due to high sea temperatures, according to authorities. This occurs when heat-stressed corals release algae, causing starvation and death if temperatures remain too high.
The issue extends far beyond Australia, according to data from NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch programme, and a fourth worldwide catastrophic coral bleaching event might occur in the coming months.
Hurricanes that are more violent are caused by the heat of the sea. An oceanographer from Mercator Ocean International in France named Karina von Schuckmann stated, “The warmer the sea, the more power to fuel storms is available.”
Some scientists are surprised by the unusually high temperatures in the North Atlantic, an ocean region crucial to the genesis of hurricanes, and are currently investigating the precise causes.
Record-breaking margins have occasionally been achieved (in the North Atlantic), according to Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School, who spoke in an interview.
High ocean temperatures in the second half of 2024 and the development of a La Niña event could increase the risk of a highly active hurricane season. seas store about 90% of the world’s excess heat from burning fossil fuels, making them crucial for tracking the status and evolution of global warming, according to climate scientist Richard Schuckmann.
The El Niño phenomenon is expected to diminish and eventually fade over the next months, perhaps bringing the record ocean temperatures back to normal, particularly if La Niña’s cooling impacts take its place.
“Surface temperature readings have historically dropped following the passage of El Niño,” Schuckmann stated. However, she continued, it is now hard to forecast when sea temperatures would go below historical lows.
