2024-01-12 01:17:01
The Mediterranean Sea experienced the longest heat wave since 1981 between 2022 and 2023. The exceptional data emerges from the project’s research CAREHeat (marine heatwave detection and threats), financed by the European Space Agency (ESA), carried out in Italy by ENEA and Cnr and published in the journal Environmental Research Letterswhich aims to develop new methodologies to predict and identify heat waves, understand their propagation ils impacts on the environment, biodiversity and economic activities, such as fishing and aquaculture.
In research, the satellite data with those who come from observations in situ done by Lampedusa Spa, the only site in Europe capable of providing information on the interactions between vegetation, the atmosphere and the ocean both in carbon exchanges and in all the processes and energy exchanges which regulate the region’s climate. Additionally, through the use of modeling simulations and state-of-the-art data processing systems, researchers were able to characterize the anomaly that affected the period in question.
The Mediterranean Sea is confirmed as a climate change hotspot
As we have already said several times, the Mare Nostrum is considered a real hot spots of ongoing climate changethat is to say, one of the areas of our planet in which the effects of global warming are accelerated and amplified, therefore manifesting themselves more quickly and intensely than elsewhere.
But what do we mean by a sea heatwave? Much like what happens with heat waves on land, there is an abnormal warming of the sea, with values above normal that persist for days or weeks. Unfortunately, with the global climate crisis, we find ourselves facing more intense, more frequent and longer-lasting marine heatwaves.
As if that were not enough, heat waves in the Mediterranean, as in all other basins, cause damage not only to local ecosystems, but also to our economy: the abnormal increase in temperatures causes an increase in stress for life underwater, causing death. and losses of biodiversity, even more profoundly.
Between May 2022 and May 2023, the worst heat wave since 1981
The summer of 2022 is remembered for being one of hottest and driest ever recorded in Europe: the tenacious persistence of anticyclonic conditions of African origin – which we know are associated with the sun, stable and warm weather – has caused a considerable increase in temperatures not only on the continent, but also on the sea surface.
In early spring 2022, Mediterranean surface temperatures were within the climatic norm for the period, but from May onwards the temperature began to increase significantly. From the 8th of the same month the anomaly jumped towards 1.5°C in less than a week. The warming was exceptional especially in the western sectors, where temperatures were reached locally 4°C more compared to normal. In the following weeks, new drops and rises in temperatures followed one another. In July 2022, an intense heat wave affected the Western Mediterranean and the Ionian Sea: in this phase the anomalies reached 5°C difference. In the following months, the overall anomaly always remained between 1 and 1.5°C until October. Between November and December, the heatwave seemed to be coming to an end, but we saw a further increase in anomalies, with a new peak in January 2023.
Even if the peaks are comparable to those reached during the hot summer 2003according to scientists, this intense marine heatwave was decidedly longer: that of 2003 lasted from June to November, that of 2022 lasted 12 months.
The causes of the abnormal heatwave in the Mediterranean
The exceptional duration of the marine heatwave also contributed to the vent, considered one of the “atmospheric forcings” that affect the seas and oceans. The wind, by inducing a vertical mixing of heat between the sea surface and the underlying layers, caused the excess energy to be stored below the surface, thus favoring the persistence of warm anomalies for several months.
To this was added the autumn and winter atmospheric configuration which has experienced substantial persistence and prevalence of anticyclonic conditionswith an absence of rain and snow, extending the heat wave into the climatically coldest months.
Gianmaria Sanninohead of the Models and Technologies Division for the reduction of human impacts and natural risks at ENEA, commented on the data from this research, stating:
The CAREheat results bring only some of the signs of climate change before our eyes, but we must be aware that we are only at the beginning of a larger process and that we are facing signs of what is to come. occur more and more frequently. In this context, research is and will be a key element to inform and guide future environmental policies, as COP28 finally established: in fact, the results of the last Conference of the Parties in Dubai will guide the updating of plans National Climate Action Plans for 2025, for more ambitious action and targeted funding.
1705032411
#longest #heatwave #years #occurred #Mediterranean