{"id":597743,"date":"2026-08-19T04:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T04:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/597743\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T04:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T04:52:09","slug":"climate-change-driving-european-marine-heatwaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/597743\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change driving European marine heatwaves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Human-caused climate change was the main driver of recent record-breaking sea temperatures around Europe, scientists said, warning of severe consequences for marine ecosystems and coastal communities.<\/p>\n

Europe’s seas have not escaped \u2060the extreme heat that many countries have endured this summer.<\/p>\n

Last month, the average temperature in the Mediterranean was 27C, the highest for any July on record, while an offshore buoy near Mallorca recorded 33C in early August.<\/p>\n

Human-caused climate change has added about two degrees of warming to the Mediterranean and around 1.4C to Western European seas, according to an analysis by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group, which uses peer-reviewed methods to assess global warming’s role in extreme weather events.<\/p>\n

“This has the potential \u200cto completely reshape ecosystems that coastal \u2060communities rely on for food and income, and drive damaging extreme weather on land too,” said Claire Bergin, a climate scientist at Maynooth University and co-author of the study.<\/p>\n

\"Flamingo
\nA flamingo seen in the Mediterranean sea<\/p>\n

The analysis found that peak sea temperatures recorded this year in the eastern and western Mediterranean and along the Bay of Biscay and Iberian coast would have been “virtually impossible” \u200cwithout human-caused climate change.<\/p>\n

In the Celtic Sea, off Ireland and Britain, the most extreme temperatures recorded would have been expected only about once \u2060a century in a world without human-caused climate change, it found.<\/p>\n

Hotter seas increase humidity and overnight \u200ctemperatures in coastal areas and can help fuel intense storms later in the year.<\/p>\n

Greenhouse gas \u2060emissions, mainly \u200cfrom burning fossil fuels, have raised the planet’s average temperature to around 1.4C above pre-industrial levels, according to the World Meteorological Organization.<\/p>\n

This hotter baseline means the high-pressure atmospheric systems that cause heatwaves can reach higher temperatures.<\/p>\n

\"An
\nAn aerial view of beachgoers along the coast of Kanali, in the Preveza region of Greece<\/p>\n

Sea temperature spikes can cause \u2060mass die-offs of species such as corals and disrupt food supplies for birds and mammals, with knock-on effects through \u2060food chains.<\/p>\n

John Bruno, a marine ecologist at the University of North Carolina, said some species were moving north to seek cooler waters, but not all could adapt.<\/p>\n

“We are rapidly approaching the absolute biological limits of adaptation for many species,” he said.<\/p>\n

According to the WWA analysis, about 90% of the Bay of Biscay and 80% of the western Mediterranean have experienced marine heatwave conditions this year.<\/p>\n

\u200cWithout global warming, that figure would have been closer to 40%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Human-caused climate change was the main driver of recent record-breaking sea temperatures around Europe, scientists said, warning of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-597743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}