Record warmth in the oceans, with the Mediterranean having the highest rate of warming globally: temperatures in ocean waters up to a depth of 2,000 meters are the highest ever recorded, as if the oceans had absorbed the equivalent of heat produced by 630 billion hair dryers continuously operating day and night for one year.
This is indicated by the data collected by 13 research institutes around the world, including the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (Ingv) and Enea and published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.
"The Mediterranean is considered a hot spot in which effects due to climate change may be more important for its conformation and for the circulation of currents. This research has shown that it is the basin with the highest rate of global warming" Simona Simoncelli, from Ingv, who participated in the study with Franco Reseghetti of Enea, told ANSA.
However, the expert specified that "these are preliminary estimates" and that the research group plans "to deepen the studies to better understand why the Mediterranean has this kind of trend".
The researchers did not calculate the temperature, but the heat content of the oceans up to 2,000 meters deep, based on data from all the observations available in the World Ocean Database.
It was thus discovered that in 2020, compared to 2019, the oceans absorbed an amount of heat equal to 20 Zettajoules, or the equivalent of the heat produced by 630 billion hair dryers constantly operating day and night for a year.
Temperatures are the highest ever recorded since the coverage of the measures allows for a global estimate.
