Despite its relatively limited size compared to the fires in Canada, the unprecedented heat wave currently hitting the waters of the Atlantic Ocean would, according to scientists, cause an invisible massacre of marine species, in a phenomenon that may recur with the exacerbation of climate warming.
Between March and May, the average ocean surface temperature reached an all-time high since measurements began 174 years ago, outstripping the 20th-century average by 0.83 degrees Celsius, according to NOAA data, reports Al-Rai daily.
This marine heat wave did not escape the Atlantic Ocean, which in June suffered severe heat waves, especially from southern Iceland to Africa, with temperature differences of more than 5 degrees Celsius off the British Isles.
“Such temperature differences in this part of the North Atlantic are unprecedented,” said Daniela Schmidt, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Bristol, in remarks reported by the British Science Media Centre.
The oceanographer and climatologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in France, Jean-Baptiste Sale, confirms the existence of “very strong, striking and very disturbing imbalances.”
This marine heat wave, with temperatures exceeding 23 degrees Celsius in the North Atlantic, doesn’t exactly surprise scientists who know that the oceans absorb 90 percent of the heat generated by climate warming. Therefore, this type of event will become more frequent and intense under the influence of climate warming.
As Jean-Pierre Gattuso, director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research, co-author of a report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN climate experts), notes, “It is surprising that things are moving so quickly.”
Many hypotheses have been put forward to explain this extreme phenomenon, including the shrinkage of wind-borne desert dust or sulfur emissions from ships, two types of aerosols that usually have a cooling effect on the atmosphere.
As for the “El Niño” phenomenon, it seems that it has not developed to a large extent, that is, it is without an effect on the North Atlantic. “We expect an impact next spring,” Juliette Mineo, an oceanographer at the Research Institute for Development, explains.