Mediterranean Sea Getting Warmer and Saltier

Scientists were recently able to conclude with certainty that the western parts of the Mediterranean Sea are currently experiencing warmer temperatures, and larger salt concentrations, than anytime before. The new research spans more than half a century, as it includes data collected between 1943 and 2000. The Spanish researchers who were behind the investigation say that the trend is visible in the deep sea as well, and that it appears to have been accelerating constantly since the 1990s.

The fact that the water is getting warmer and saltier has serious implications for the marine ecosystem, as well as for the safety of the food chain. Life evolved in the oceans in a very delicate and self-regulating balance. Various species consume each other, but they also keep each other in check. Add in additional, non-natural factors, and the balance can easily be destroyed. Fish, for example, can adapt to climate change, but they cannot adapt to overfishing, because there are no “loopholes” around this.

According to AlphaGalileo, citing the new report, the changes in temperature and salinity are not necessarily large when viewed all by themselves. The western Mediterranean is getting warmer at a rate of about 0.002ºCelsius, which is very small in absolute term. However, the trend persists year after year, and it does not continue unabated. The amount of heat that is being absorbed increases slightly each year, and the trend does not appear to be slowing down. As far as salinity goes, 0.001 units are added to the deep water annually, the investigators say.

There is not doubt that the new results are accurate, “but to confirm this accelerating trend, we need to monitor it over the years to come,” tells SINC Spanish Institute of Oceanography IEO Oceanic Center of Malaga researcher Manuel Vargas-Yanez, who was also the main author of the study. Details of the investigation appear in a paper published in the latest issue of the esteemed Journal of Geophysical Research. “These layers, especially the deep one, take up a huge volume, and raising its temperature each year by one thousandth of a degree requires an enormous amount of heat,” the expert adds.

“We need to support the networks that already exist and build new ones to monitor the sea. Only then will we be able to detect, in a reliable and effective way, the changes taking place in the sea,” Vargas-Yanez concludes.