Cristina Hodgson
MALAGA has logged the warmest sea-surface temperature at Fuengirola beach since daily measurements began in 1984.
The measurements taken this Monday morning by scientists from the Mediterranean Climate Change Group of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) read 26.6C
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This was one degree higher than the previous record set in August 2013.
The average water temperature on the coast of Malaga in August, obtained from the daily measurements of the IEO, is 21.3C.
Consequently, the temperature recorded on Monday in Fuengirola is 5.3 degrees above the average for this month.
The east wind is responsible for the increase in water temperature on the coast of Malaga as it allows warm water to accumulate on the coast.
On the contrary, the west wind pushes coastal waters back into the sea and causes deeper and colder waters to surface, thus lowering the temperature.
With a westerly wind, temperatures of 17C have been recorded in August, almost 10 degrees less than the new record.
The high temperatures and the persistence of the east wind in recent weeks have led for the exceptional temperature to be registered.
“Unfortunately, these records are beginning to be commonplace, and are not exclusive to Malaga or the Alboran Sea,” said Manolo Vargas, a physicist with the IEO’s Climate Change Group.
“The studies carried out by the IEO show that the waters around the Mediterranean are warming and that the rate at which this warming is taking place is accelerating over the last decade,” Vargas said.
According to reports by National Geographic, the average Ocean temperatures are pushed higher and higher each year by human-caused global warming.
Most of the trapped heat in the Earth’s atmosphere is absorbed into the planets’ vast oceans, resulting in the top part of the ocean warming up, about 24% faster than it did a few decades ago. A rate likely to increase in the future.
The sea and Ocean temperature rise has enormous impacts on marine life, storm intensity, and more.
World Sea Temperatures
The hottest ocean area is in the Persian Gulf, where water temperatures at the surface exceeds 32C in the summer.
Another hot area exists in the Red Sea, where a temperature of 56C has been recorded at a depth of about 6,500 feet.
