Mediterranean warmer by more than 1 degree in last 25 years

100 campaigns by ENEA and INGV, crucial for climate studies

By: ansa.it

Nov 07 2024
0
0 Views

Mediterranean warmer by more t

The Mediterranean has become warmer by more than one degree in the space of 25 years, according to a study out Thursday.
    Data collected from 100 temperature survey campaigns conducted by the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology and alternative energy agency ENEA as part of the Macpap project and in collaboration with GNV, the ferry company of the MSC Group, indicate that since 2013 there has been a progressive increase in surface temperature in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, extending northward, and that the temperature is also increasing in the deeper layers, up to 800 meters.
    In particular, in the depth between 100 and 450 meters the temperature increased from 0.4 to 0.6 degrees and in that between 450 and 800 meters from 0.3 to 0.5 degrees. The data also indicate that between 2013 and 2016 the warming was greater than 0.4 degrees, followed by a slight decrease and a stationary period in the following years, and then it started to increase progressively again from 2021 until September 2023, when it reached its maximum.
    According to the researchers, both "the short time span in which this change occurred" and the fact that "to induce the temperature increase measured between 2015 and 2023 in the Tyrrhenian Sea in the layer between 200 and 800 meters deep would require an amount of energy equal to tens of times the electricity consumption in Italy in a year".
    This data collection is "crucial for climate studies", observe researchers from ENEA, including Franco Reseghetti, who personally carried out the campaigns.
    As for the future, Simona Simoncelli of the INGV observes that "the indications of the available models lean towards a possible further increase in water temperatures, but the veracity of these forecasts can only be confirmed by the measurements that the actors of this twenty-five-year activity have every intention of continuing to carry out, starting with the hundredth campaign scheduled for next December".