Highest temperatures in 40 years recorded in the Mediterranean in 2024

The effects of climate change are being felt. Even in the Mediterranean where, in 2024, record temperatures and intense heat waves and eddies of the last 40 years have been recorded. Describing this scenario is a study carried out by researchers from ENEA with those from CNR and the MedSharks association, and also published in the journal Frontier in Marine Sciences.

The experts analysed in detail the 'spatio-temporal variability of the 2024 thermal anomaly and the mechanisms that determined it'. The study shows that record temperatures were recorded in the western and eastern Mediterranean "coupled with a significant increase in the mean kinetic energy of currents, with 2024 recording the highest value in the entire historical series (40 years)".

The analysis was based on a broad set of multidisciplinary observations, including satellite observations measuring temperature and sea level, meteorological data providing information on heat exchange between the atmosphere and the sea, as well as in situ coastal temperature measurements collected through citizen science activities and data obtained from oceanographic models.

"If the progressive warming of the basin has been ongoing since the early 1980s," is the comment of project coordinator Ernesto Napolitano of ENEA's Climate Models and Services Laboratory, "since 2022 the increase in sea surface temperatures has taken on exceptional characteristics, culminating in 2024, the hottest year ever recorded.

In 2024 the 'anomalous warming', the study points out, was preceded by a prolonged phase of heat accumulation between spring 2022 and summer 2023, followed between autumn 2023 and spring 2024 by reduced heat loss to the atmosphere, which kept the sea temperature well above the seasonal average. "In February 2024, the sea surface temperature exceeded 15 °C in the western Mediterranean," continue Enea, "and 18 °C in the eastern Mediterranean, while at the end of August the waters of the eastern basin touched 29 °C, leading to an extraordinary marine heat wave. The presence of a superficial mixed layer, i.e. the most superficial layer of the sea, which is unusually thin, favoured the accumulation of heat in the most superficial layers, accentuating and prolonging the anomaly'.