According to the news of tourism news Center, the news source of the tourism industry, ocean temperatures began to rise in mid-March, worrying scientists, and while temperatures have fallen since their peak in April, they are still higher than recorded at this time of year.
Matthew England, professor of ocean and climate dynamics at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said that while the record may not seem huge, it is a lot of energy. The current ocean temperature is 21.1 degrees, beating the previous record of 21 degrees in 2016.
Some scientists worry that the scale of these new records could be the start of an alarming trend. Others say record-breaking temperatures like these have always been worrying, but are to be expected given the human-induced climate crisis.
All agree that the consequences could be significant. Warmer oceans bleach corals, kill marine life, increase sea level rise and make the ocean less efficient at absorbing the pollution that warms the planet. The warmer the oceans get, the warmer the planet gets.
One of the main causes of the warming is believed to be El Niño, a natural ocean-atmosphere event associated with warming in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, which has a global warming effect.
Scientists say ocean temperatures have been on a rebound since La Niña ended in March.
The World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday that El Niño has about an 80% chance of developing between July and September. But one of the things that puzzles scientists is that temperatures will rise so much before it arrives.
Some worry that this shows that climate change is progressing in ways that climate models do not predict.
