Sea surface temperatures ' boosted by human-caused climate change and a powerful El Nino event gaining strength in the Pacific Ocean ' have already broken monthly records for the past two months, according to the European Commission's Copernicus Climate Change Service. In July, the average sea surface temperature outside the Arctic and Antarctic oceans was 20.96 'C, surpassing the previous July record set in 2023 by 0.07 'C, the agency reported. That followed a record hot June (see 'Hot water'). This leaves the oceans about to become hotter than they've been at any other point on record: average sea surface temperatures are currently hovering just a few hundredths of a degree below the current record from March 2024. Given that temperatures tend to rise for months after the emergence of an El Nino, this record will almost certainly be broken this year. 'It's just a case of when,' says Samantha Burgess, a climate scientist and Copernicus' deputy director in Reading, UK. Much of the...
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