France has\u00a0seen searing temperatures\u00a0in successive heatwaves over the past few\u00a0weeks,\u00a0but it\u2019s not only on\u00a0land that temperatures are insufferably high. The Mediterranean Sea\u2019s surface temperature reached a\u00a0record high\u00a030.7\u00b0C in late July, and\u00a0marine heatwaves are becoming increasingly common because of climate\u00a0change \u2013 with\u00a0dramatic consequences for biodiversity.<\/p>\n
As\u00a0Europe\u00a0battles\u00a0wildfires\u00a0and record drought on land, rising sea temperatures pose another kind of threat.\u00a0On July 24, the temperature in the\u00a0Mediterranean\u00a0reached a peak of 30.7\u00b0C off the coast of Alistro in eastern\u00a0Corsica, according to the Keraunos meteorological observatory. The next day, in the bay of Villefrance-sur-Mer \u2013 an idyllic beach town a few miles from Nice \u2013 a researcher at the local\u00a0oceanographic\u00a0laboratory recorded a temperature of 29.2\u00b0C.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unprecedented,\u201d said the researcher, Jean-Pierre Gattuso. The Mediterraean\u2019s temperature is usually between 21\u00b0 and 24\u00b0C at this time of year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing is a marine heatwave,\u201d Gattuso said. \u201cLike the heatwaves we get on land, it\u2019s characterised by unusual temperatures for the season and can go on for several days or even weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this case, Gattuso\u00a0said, record temperatures have been continuing\u00a0since the end of June and\u00a0are\u00a0affecting the entire western Mediterranean, from the heel of the Italian boot to Spain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":1,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[177],"tags":[381,2008],"region":[9032],"source":[1727],"country":[2221],"state":[],"city":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/96702"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/newss"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/96702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96703,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/96702\/revisions\/96703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96702"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=96702"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=96702"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=96702"},{"taxonomy":"state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/state?post=96702"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=96702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}