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".
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