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CLIMATE CRISIS

28.7C: Mediterranean Sea breaks daily temperature record

The Mediterranean Sea reached its highest temperature on record this week during an exceptional heatwave, researchers told AFP on Tuesday.

Published: 25 July 2023 22:58 CEST
28.7C: Mediterranean Sea breaks daily temperature record
Temperatures in the Mediterranean sea hit record levels this week. Illustration photo Pascal POCHARD-CASABIANCA / AFP

“We attained a new record… in the daily median sea surface temperature of the Mediterranean: 28.71C,” Spain’s Institute of Marine Sciences said, analysing data from the satellites used by the European Earth observation programme Copernicus.

“The last record was in August 23, 2003 with a median value of 28.25C,” it added.

These findings are yet to be confirmed by Copernicus.

Copernicus recently said that at the beginning of June, global temperatures exceeded pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5C, which is the most ambitious cap for global warming in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Such temperatures threaten marine life. During earlier heatwaves between 2015 and 2019 about 50 species including corals and molluscs were decimated.

The Mediterranean region, hit by record temperatures in July, has long been classified as a hotspot of climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body, had warned that there was a drastic change in the marine ecosystems in the Mediterranean since the 1980s with a decline in biodiversity and the arrival of several invasive species.

IPCC experts have warned that more than 20 percent of fish and invertebrates caught in the Mediterranean could disappear by 2060 if global warming exceeded the 1.5C target.

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CLIMATE CRISIS

Vast France building project sunk by sea level rise fears

An ambitious housing project in the northwestern French city of Caen has run aground over worries that rising waters driven by climate change could make the area unlivable within the century.

Published: 19 September 2024 09:44 CEST
Vast France building project sunk by sea level rise fears

Conceived in the early 2010s, the development was to transform a strip of industrial wasteland between the River Orne and the canal linking Caen to the sea into 2,300 homes, as well as tens of thousands of square metres of office space.

But the construction “will not happen”, said Thibaud Tiercelet, director general of the “Caen Peninsula” planning society in charge of the “Nouveau Bassin” (New Basin) project.

In 2023, just as all the authorisations to start work on the project had been obtained, Tiercelet was alerted by a group of experts tasked with determining the impact of climate change on the Normandy region.

That group’s findings were stark enough to convince then-Caen mayor Joel Bruneau to sink the development.

“In 2017, the estimated rise in sea level was 20 centimetres by 2100,” Tiercelet recalled of the data.

But “in 2020 it was 60 centimetres, and in 2023 it was one metre”.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects a “likely” sea level rise of 40 to 80 centimetres by 2100.

READ MORE: MAPS: The parts of France set to be underwater as sea levels rise

But it also notes this estimate does not take into account poorly understood drivers that could push sea levels significantly higher, such as the rapid disintegration of the polar ice sheets.

In any case, the IPCC advises that urban planners in coastal cities “may wish to consider global-mean sea level rise above the assessed likely range”.

‘It will flood every week’

At present, the 17-kilometre-long strip, dubbed Caen’s “peninsula”, is only 70 centimetres above the canal’s water level.

“If the sea rises by one metre, it will flood here every week,” urban planner Tiercelet said.

While climate scientists stress that there is uncertainty about the extent and pace of the rise in water levels, the fact is that they will happen.

As for the level of the canal, it is currently regulated by a lock “which only has 50 centimetres of leeway at high tide”, noted Tiercelet.

So in a few decades, it may no longer be able to fulfil its role.

Plans for the development have been shelved as a result, with improvements to the promenade on the “peninsula” scheduled instead — pending a study into the water dynamics of the entire Orne river estuary.

‘Temporary uses’

Besides the project, the sea level rise projections also scuppered “the extension of the tramway and an access footbridge” to the strip, said Emmanuel Renard, vice-president for land use and development in the Caen-la-Mer urban community.

Renard said they were looking at “transitional urban planning for 40 years with temporary uses” for the area — which could include student housing or craft workshops on the land where disused warehouses are awaiting demolition.

As seawater rises more frequently through the estuary and groundwater, the strip’s freshwater ecosystem will gradually become saline and brackish.

READ MORE: MAP: The French towns at urgent risk from coastal erosion

The tree species that will soon be planted around the promenade, which is currently being cleaned up, have been chosen to suit this future ecosystem.

“It’s the end of a 170-year-old model, of the technological explosion that allowed the era of large-scale construction and mastery over our environment,” Tiercelet said.

“And now we’re going to have to adapt.”

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