Global Sea Surface Temperatures Reached New Record High in July

When you take a dip in the ocean, expecting it to provide a refreshing reprieve from the scorching summer temperatures and it feels like a hot tub, as it did recently in the Florida Keys, something is amiss.

According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, the average global sea surface temperature reached a new high of 69.728 degrees Fahrenheit in July, which could have a range of serious implications for our planet, reported The Guardian.

Global ocean temperatures are usually warmest in March, so scientists say the record will likely keep increasing.

“The level of warmth we are seeing today is only possible because of the warming over the past 150 years due to human activity,” said Dr. Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at nonprofit research institute Berkeley Earth, as The New York Times reported.

With El Niño ramping up, extreme ocean temperatures are expected to continue into the autumn months, scientists say.

“The fact that we’ve seen the record now makes me nervous about how much warmer the ocean may get between now and next March,” said Copernicus climate scientist Dr. Samantha Burgess, as reported by The Guardian.

About 70 percent of Earth is ocean, and our watery surface has absorbed almost all — more than 90 percent — of the heat that has been generated by human activities like deforestation and the reckless burning of fossil fuels.

“The more we burn fossil fuels, the more excess heat will be taken out by the oceans, which means the longer it will take to stabilise them and get them back to where they were,” Burgess told BBC News.

Oceans not only absorb heat, but drive global weather patterns and act as the world’s biggest carbon sink.

“The ocean generates 50 percent of the oxygen we need, absorbs 25 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions and captures 90 percent of the excess heat generated by these emissions. It is not just ‘the lungs of the planet’ but also its largest ‘carbon sink’ – a vital buffer against the impacts of climate change,” according to the United Nations.

As the ocean warms, it is less able to absorb the carbon dioxide we produce, meaning there will be more left over in the atmosphere, The Guardian reported.

Warming oceans also means the expansion of sea water and melting glaciers and ice sheets, all of which contribute to dangerous sea level rise, NASA said.

A combination of ships’ measurements of sea surface temperature going from the last 150-plus years and buoy and satellite measurements from the past four decades have shown that the average sea surface temperature has risen by nearly 0.9 degrees Celsius over the entire period and by approximately 0.6 degrees Celsius over the past 40 years, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said. The most recent five-year average has been about 0.2 degrees Celsius higher than the mean temperature between 1991 and 2020.

The Arctic Ocean, “extra-tropical Pacific,” the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea are some of the most rapidly warming ocean regions of the planet, reported The Guardian.

“In many ways,” the ocean is “the most accurate thermometer we have for the actual effect of climate change, because it’s where most of the heat ends up,” Hausfather said, as The New York Times reported.