How much warmer is the Mediterranean becoming? Thirty-five years of satellite observations

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.11.16693

Keywords:

Mediterranean, global warming, climate change, physical geography, remote sensing

Abstract

Global warming particularly affects the oceans and seas. In the Mediterranean Sea, in situ oceanographic and meteorological records, together with the most recent satellite observations, show an estimated warming of between 0.6 °C and 1 °C over the last three decades. In this article we present the results of an analysis of a 35-year series of monthly thermal images in the western basins of the Mediterranean. The data indicate an intensification in the summer season: with the summers becoming longer and more intense and the months of June and July recording the highest rates of warming, with increases of 0.6 °C/decade. 

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

María José López García, University of Valencia (Spain).

Full Professor of Physical Geography in the Department of Geography at the University of Valencia (Spain), specialising in geographical information technologies. Her research focuses on the development of methodologies and applications of satellite remote sensing for the analysis of global change in the Mediterranean, especially sea temperature, water quality, and land use changes over time and space. She has completed research stays in the Department of Geography at the University of Bristol, the Centre d’Océanologie in Marseille (IFREMER), and King’s College in London, and has collaborated on various research projects at the regional, national, and European levels. 

References

Belkin, I. (2009). Rapid warming of large marine ecosystems. Progress in Oceanography, 81(1–4), 207–213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2009.04.011

Bergamasco, A., & Malanotte-Rizzoli, P. (2010). The circulation of the Mediterranean Sea: A historical review of experimental investigations. Advances in Oceanography and Limnology, 1(1), 11–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/19475721.2010.491656

Bethoux, J. P., Gentili, B., Morin, P., Nicolas, E., Pierre, C., & Ruiz-Pino, D. (1999). The Mediterranean Sea: A miniature ocean for climatic and environmental studies and a key for the climatic functioning of the North Atlantic. Progress in Oceanography, 44(1–3), 131–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0079-6611(99)00023-3

García-Martínez, M. C., Vargas-Yáñez, M., Moya, F., Zunino, P., & Bautista, B. (2018). The effects of climate change and rivers damming in the Mediterranean Sea during the twentieth century. International Journal of Environmental Sciences & Natural Resources, 8(4), 555741. https://doi.org/10.19080/IJESNR.2018.08.555741

IPCC. (2013). Climate change 2013: The physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the Fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press.

López García, M. J. (1991). La temperatura superficial del mar Balear a partir de imágenes de satélite (dissertation). University of Valencia, Spain.

López García, M. J. (2015). Recent warming in the Balearic Sea and Spanish Mediterranean coast. Towards an earlier and longer summer. Atmósfera, 28(3), 149–160. https://doi.org/10.20937/ATM.2015.28.03.01

López García, M. J. (2020). SST Comparison of AVHRR and MODIS Time Series in the Western Mediterranean Sea. Remote Sensing, 12(14), 2241. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12142241

López García, M. J., & Camarasa, A. M. (2011). Recent trends of SST in the Western Mediterranean basins from AVHRR Pathfinder data (1985-2007). Global Planetary Change, 78(3-4), 127–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2011.06.001

Millot, C., & Taupier-Letage, I. (2005). Circulation in the Mediterranean Sea. In A. Saliot (Ed.), The Mediterranean Sea. Handbook of environmental chemistry (vol. 5K, pp. 29–66). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/b107143

Mohamed, B., Abdallah, A. M., El-Din, K. A., Nagy, H., & Shaltout, M. (2019). Inter-annual variability and trends of sea level and sea surface temperature in the Mediterranean Sea over the last 25 years. Pure Applied Geophysics, 176(8), 3787–3810. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-019-02223-2

Nykjaer, L. (2009). Mediterranean Sea surface warming 1985-2006. Climate Research, 39, 11–17. https://doi.org/10.3354/cr00794

Sakalli, A. (2017). Sea surface temperature change in the Mediterranean Sea under climate change: A linear model for simulation of the sea surface temperature up to 2100. Applied Ecology and Environmental Research, 15(1), 707–716. https://doi.org/10.15666/aeer/1501_707716

Salat, J., Pascual, J., Flexas, M., Chin, T. M., & Vazquez-Cuervo, J. (2019). Forty-five years of oceanographic and meteorological observations at a costal station in the NW Mediterranean: A ground truth for satellite observations. Ocean Dynamics, 69, 1067–1084. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-019-01285-z

Shaltout, M., & Omstedt, A. (2014). Recent sea surface temperature trends and future scenarios for the Mediterranean Sea. Oceanologica, 56(3), 411–443. https://doi.org/10.5697/oc.56-3.411

Skliris, N., Sofianos, S., Gkanasos, A., Mantziafou, A., Vervatis, V., Axaopoulos, P., & Lascaratos, A. (2012). Decadal scale variability of sea surface temperature in the Mediterranean Sea in relation to atmospheric variability. Ocean Dynamics, 62, 13–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-011-0493-5

Trenberth, K. E., Jones, P. D., Ambenje, P., Bojariu, R., Easterling, D., Tank, A. K., Parker, D., Rahimzadeh, F., Renwick, J. A., Rusticucci, M., Soden, B., … Zhai, P. (2007). Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change. In S. Solomon, D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K. B. Averyt, M. Tignor, & H. L. Miller (Eds.), Climate change 2007: The physical science basis (pp. 235–336). Cambridge University Press.

Vargas-Yáñez, M., García, M. C., Moya, F., Tel, E., Parrilla, G., Plaza, F., Lavín, A., & García, M. J. (2010). Cambio climático en el Mediterráneo español. Temas de Oceanografía, 3 (2ª ed.). Instituto Español de Oceanografía y Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.

Von Schuckmann, K., Le Traon, P. Y., Smith, N., Pascual, A., Brasseur, P., Fennel, K. & Djavidnia, S. (Eds). (2018). Copernicus marine service ocean state report. Journal of Operational Oceanography, 11(sup1), S1–S142. https://doi.org/10.1080/1755876X.2018.1489208

Downloads

Additional Files

Published

2021-01-21

How to Cite

López García, M. J. (2021). How much warmer is the Mediterranean becoming? Thirty-five years of satellite observations. Metode Science Studies Journal, (11), 193–199. https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.11.16693
Metrics
Views/Downloads
  • Abstract
    1047
  • PDF
    402
  • figuras separadas (Español)
    2

Issue

Science's structures (2021)

Section

Oceans. The impact of global change on the sea

License

All the documents in the OJS platform are open access and property of their respective authors.

Authors publishing in the journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors keep the rights and guarantee Metode Science Studies Journal the right to be the first publication of the document, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of authorship and publication in the journal.
  2. Authors are allowed and encouraged to spread their work through electronic means using personal or institutional websites (institutional open archives, personal websites or professional and academic networks profiles) once the text has been published.

Metrics

Similar Articles

> >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.