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Published By: Shankhyaneel Sarkar
Last Updated: July 29, 2023, 07:03 IST
Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the sea surface temperature reached 24.9°C earlier this week. (Image: Shutterstock)
The timing of the temperature spike has also created an alarm among scientists as it reaches higher temperatures early September.
The sea surface temperature in the North Atlantic has reached a new record high, according to preliminary data released Friday by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has been tracking since the early 1980s.
“Based on our analysis, the record-high average sea surface temperature in the North Atlantic Ocean is 24.9 degrees C,” or 76.8 Fahrenheit, observed Wednesday, Xungang Yin, a scientist at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, told AFP.
The record is particularly startling as it comes early in the year — usually, the North Atlantic reaches its peak high temperature in early September.
The previous record high was recorded in September 2022, at 24.89 degrees Celsius, Yin said.
The sea surface temperature in the North Atlantic is “expected to continue to increase through the month of August,” the scientist said, adding it was “highly likely” the record would again be broken.
The new high of 24.9 degrees Celsius is “more than one degree warmer than a 30-year climatological normal, calculated from 1982 to 2011,” he added.
Since March, which is the month when the North Atlantic begins to warm up after winter, temperatures have generally been warmer than in previous years, with the difference more pronounced in recent weeks.
The North Atlantic has become an emblematic observation point for the warming of seawater worldwide due to the effects of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)
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