Marine heatwave pushes up Mediterranean Sea temperature
The EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service said Copernicus Marine Service data showed sea surface temperatures on June 22 were more than 5 degrees Celsius above the seasonal average.
The most intense warming in what it called a "marine heatwave" was observed in the western Mediterranean basin, including the Balearic Sea, off Spain, and the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the west coast of Italy, it said.
"We have seen temperatures we were expecting in the middle of August being recorded in June and ... this is why it is considered a record year for temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea," Christos Spyrou, associate researcher at the Academy of Athens research centre for atmospheric physics, said.
He said that the average sea temperatures in June were 3-6 degrees higher than the average between 1982-2023, which was used as a reference period.
"We expected these sea temperatures in August," Spyrou said, adding specific temperatures were not yet available.
"Some species will not be able to reproduce or survive in these conditions, especially in increasing temperatures.'
Europe is the world's fastest-warming continent, heating up at twice the global average, according to Copernicus, making extreme heatwaves occur earlier in the year, and persist into later months.
Several Italian regions banned outdoor work during the hottest hours of the day on Tuesday, France shut scores of schools and Spain confirmed last month as its hottest June on record as a severe heatwave gripped Europe, triggering widespread health alerts.
A 69-year-old Greek resident who gave his name as Christos said he had noticed the warming waters off Athens.
'I have been coming here for 11 years, I believe the sea is a little warmer than other years. Every year it gets warmer, both in winter and in summer," he said
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The Guardian
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Reuters
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Times
3 days ago
- Times
How a flood of cheap British octopus is changing restaurant menus
They've been described as the Einsteins of the sea and are so intelligent they can navigate mazes and use tools. But today, the common octopus is finding its way onto the plates of diners across the country after an influx of the cephalopods to British oceans not seen for 75 years. The sudden increase, known as an octopus 'bloom', is primarily due to warming ocean temperatures caused by climate change. The common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) is usually found in the Mediterranean, while Britain's cooler waters are typically home to the curled octopus (Eledone cirrhosa). 'We had an unusually warm winter this year,' said Bryce Stewart, senior research fellow at the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth. 'Those warm temperatures have continued through the spring and into summer, which favours the common octopus as it's a warm-water species.' 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Rick Toogood, head chef of Little Prawn in Padstow, Cornwall, and Prawn on the Lawn in Islington, north London, said that serving octopus previously meant importing it frozen from Spain at up to £20 per kg. 'Now that there is quite a bit of octopus it's come down to around £11 per kilogram,' he said. 'We obviously want to source as much as we can from our shores and this means if we want to put octopus on the menu we can get British-caught pretty much whenever we want it.' Toogood said the rising ocean temperature also meant an increase in other fish used to warmer waters, including bluefin tuna. On Thursday afternoon he received a 40kg bluefin that would have cost more than £1,200 last year. This time he only paid £650. Isaac McHale, the head chef and co-owner of Bar Valette in Shoreditch, east London, said he had also been serving up an abundance of tuna, but the star of the show became the octopus once he heard of the bloom at the start of the summer. 'Octopus is typically not very common in the UK so we don't have this history of eating octopus,' he said. McHale said the curled octopus, which has a single row of suckers on each tentacle, was smaller and tougher than the larger common octopus. In other words, 'not great eating', the chef said. In contrast, the common octopus, which is larger and has two rows of suckers, is versatile enough to be cooked either hot and fast or low and slow. Although the bloom has been a boon for chefs, not everyone has been excited. The common octopus feeds on crustaceans including crabs, lobsters and scallops, whose populations have plummeted on the south coast. Mike Roach, deputy chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, said some vessels in Devon had a 'complete absence of crab and lobster in their catches'. The Marine Management Organisation recorded that the brown crab catch was just over 400 tonnes last month, almost 200 tonnes fewer than the same month in 2023. Roach said the 'short-term influx' of octopus could mean a 'reduction in crustacean and shellfish species that are relatively slow growing and may take a long time to recover from this bloom of new predators'. In May, the octopus bloom forced Plymouth city council to relax regulations that required fishermen to include a small gap in lobster and crab pots for undersized crustaceans to escape through. Because octopuses don't have bones, they are able to squeeze through tiny holes to feast on the shellfish inside. • How the ocean has changed in Attenborough's 99 years (it's not all bad) Animal rights campaigners are also concerned. In 2022, parliament recognised the highly intelligent octopus as a 'sentient being' as part of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act. Elisa Allen, vice-president of programmes for the campaign group Peta, said: 'These extraordinary animals deserve our respect and to be left in peace, not pieces.' The bloom is unlikely to last for long because the overabundance of octopuses is rapidly depleting their main food source by gorging on lobsters, crabs and shellfish. But while it continues, chefs such as Toogood will continue finding inventive ways to serve it up to hungry diners. At Little Prawn, he cooks the octopus with aromatics for two hours until tender. He then slices it and uses a blowtorch to give it a smoky flavour, before serving it with fresh tomatoes and an olive brine. Each octopus salad dish costs £13.50 and the chef said it was 'incredibly popular'. McHale said it was important to thoroughly clean the suckers with salt and water before cooking. 'Then you slowly dip the tendrils into a large pot of boiling water over and over again, which helps the tentacles to curl in an attractive way,' he said. At Bar Valette, McHale boils them for an hour before finishing them on a barbecue. At The Clove Club, he serves it alongside arroz brut, a rice soup from Mallorca. McHale said he hoped the inflated octopus supply lasted a little longer. 'Part of the joy of being a chef is getting to play with new ingredients and find ways that you can make them delicious,' he said. 'Octopus is one of those things that most people in the UK might turn their noses up at. But it's nice to change their perceptions and show that it can be really delicious.'
