Almost 40 million square kilometers of ocean around Southeast Asia and the Pacific, an area five times the size of Australia, was engulfed by a marine heatwave in 2024. This was revealed by a report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), published in The Guardian, reports A2 CNN.
OBM scientists said the record heat on land and in the ocean was largely caused by the climate crisis and coincided with a series of extreme weather events, from deadly landslides in the Philippines to floods in Australia and the rapid loss of glaciers in Indonesia.
The region was 0.48 degrees Celsius warmer than the average recorded between 1991 and 2020, the WMO's State of the Climate report said.
Satellite measurements showed that sea levels were rising by almost 4 mm per year, "significantly higher" than the global average of 3.5 mm, the report said, CNN reports.
According to the Secretary-General of the World Oceans Organization, Prof. Celeste Saulo, ocean warming and acidification were combining to “cause long-term damage” to marine ecosystems and economies.
"Sea level rise is an existential threat to all island nations. It is increasingly clear that we are quickly running out of time to change the course of events," Saulo said.
According to OBM regional director Ben Churchill, this is a message for stronger climate action. “This report shows that we are seeing things we have never seen before.” (A2 Televizion)
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