Global Warming Has Tripled The Length Of Marine Heatwaves; Along With Temp Spikes Of 5C, Storms Also More Destructive
The climate crisis has tripled the length of ocean heatwaves, a study has found, supercharging deadly storms and destroying critical ecosystems such as kelp forests and coral reefs. Half of the marine heatwaves since 2000 would not have happened without global heating, which is caused by burning fossil fuels. The heatwaves have not only become more frequent but also more intense: 1C warmer on average, but much hotter in some places, the scientists said.
The research is the first comprehensive assessment of the impact of the climate crisis on heatwaves in the world’s oceans, and it reveals profound changes. Hotter oceans also soak up fewer of the carbon dioxide emissions that are driving temperatures up. “Here in the Mediterranean, we have some marine heatwaves that are 5C hotter,” said Dr Marta Marcos at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies in Mallorca, Spain, who led the study. “It’s horrible when you go swimming. It looks like soup.”
As well as devastating underwater ecosystems such as sea grass meadows, Marcos said: “Warmer oceans provide more energy to the strong storms that affect people at the coast and inland.”
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Recent major marine heatwaves include an exceptionally long event in the Pacific in 2014-15, which caused mass mortality among marine life. Intense heat hit the Tasman Sea in 2015-16 and record sea temperatures around the UK and in the Mediterranean Sea in 2023. Scientists had warned in 2019 that ocean heatwaves were increasing sharply, killing swathes of sea-life like “wildfires that take out huge areas of forest”. Dr Zoe Jacobs at the UK’s National Oceanography Centre, who was not part of the study team, said: “Ocean heatwaves pose significant risks to society, with some individual events causing millions of dollars of losses due to impacts on the fishing, aquaculture and tourism industries. They have also been found to exacerbate heatwaves on land and have amplified extreme weather like hurricanes and storms.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/14/climate-crisis-has-tripled-length-of-deadly-ocean-heatwaves-study-finds
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