Mediterranean Sea reaches highest surface temperature ever recorded

Agence France-Presse
August 16, 2024 

A woman accompanied by children stares at the Mediterranean sea in Israel's northern coastal city of Haifa on August 14, 2024. (MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP)

The Mediterranean Sea reached its highest surface temperature with a daily median of 28.9 degrees Celsius on Thursday, according to Spanish researchers, topping a previous record set last month. For two successive summers, the Mediterranean has been warmer than it was during the exceptional 2003 heatwave, when temperatures hit record highs that went unchallenged for 20 years.

The Mediterranean Sea reached its highest temperature on record Thursday, Spanish researchers told AFP on Friday, breaking the record from July 2023.

"The maximum sea surface temperature record was broken in the Mediterranean Sea yesterday... with a daily median of 28.90C," Spain's leading institute of marine sciences said.

The previous record occurred on July 24, 2023, with a median value of 28.71C, said Justino Martinez, researcher at the Institut de Ciencies 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 (31.96C)," but this value is preliminary until further human checks can be carried out, he added.

The preliminary readings for 2024 come from satellite data from the European Copernicus Observatory, with records dating back to 1982.

"What is remarkable is not so much to reach a maximum on a given day, but to observe a long period of high temperatures, even without breaking a record," Martinez told AFP earlier this week.