The waters of the North Atlantic Ocean broke a daily temperature record on Wednesday, according to preliminary data released on Friday by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office (NOAA) that records them since the early 1980s.
“Based on our analysis, the record average sea surface temperature in the North Atlantic Ocean is 24.9°C,” as observed on Wednesday, Xungang Yin, a scientist at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, told AFP.
This record is shocking because it arrives early. In general, the North Atlantic usually reaches its maximum temperature at the beginning of September.
The previous record dates from last year, at the beginning of September, with a temperature of 24.89°C, Xungang Yin said.
The temperature of the surface of the North Atlantic waters is expected to “continue to increase during the month of August,” warned the scientist, so a new record is expected.
The temperature of 24.9°C is “more than a degree warmer” than normal, based on an average calculated between 1982 and 2011, he noted.
Since March, which is when the North Atlantic begins to warm up after winter, temperatures have generally been higher than in previous years, with a more pronounced difference in recent weeks.
The North Atlantic thus becomes an observation point for the overheating of the planet’s oceans under the effect of climate change caused by greenhouse gases.