Gulf of Maine Recorded Its 2nd Warmest Year Ever In 2022

(CTN NEWS) – Gulf of Maine – Last year was the second-warmest year ever recorded in the waters around New England, which are home to endangered whales and the majority of the US lobster fishing industry.

The Gulf of Maine is warming more quickly than most of the world’s seas, a body of water the size of Indiana that borders Canada, Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.

Less than half a degree Fahrenheit, according to researchers at the Gulf of Maine Research Center, a science facility in Portland, separated last year from breaking the previous record for the hottest year.

According to scientists, the average sea surface temperature was 53.66 degrees (12 degrees Celsius), more than 3.7 degrees higher than the 40-year normal.

 

They said that the environment, which supports multiple significant commercial fishing enterprises, particularly for lobsters, is altering as a result of the increased warming.

According to Janet Duffy-Anderson, the institute’s chief scientific officer, one warming impact is bringing species more commonly seen in southern seas into the Gulf of Maine and changing its food chain.

That includes animals that feed on lobsters, including black sea bass.

In large part, those interactions determine which species will emerge and which will become extinct, according to Duffy-Anderson. We are not currently experiencing a period of stability.

The Gulf is the hub of the lobster fishing industry, which has seen significant catch increases over the previous ten years. Yet, experts have blamed increasing temperatures for the loss of lobster fisheries in more southern waters.

Moreover, the Gulf of Maine is an important habitat for seabirds like Atlantic puffins and marine mammals like the North Atlantic right whale, with a population of only 340.

The disturbance of their food source caused by rising waters poses a hazard to those species and many others.

According to a study published Wednesday by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, frequent, severe heatwaves are one of the environmental elements contributing to the Gulf of Maine’s high temperatures.

The world’s waters are also heating up simultaneously as the warming. According to the report, last year was the third-warmest on record for the sea surface temperature.

According to the research, “what is being witnessed in the Gulf of Maine (and everywhere in the world) is a loss of that balance: bigger portions of recent years have seen above average temperatures and cold spells are vanishingly infrequent.”

According to the institute, records dating back to 1982 show that 2021 was the hottest year on record for the Gulf of Maine. The average annual sea surface temperature that year was just above 54 degrees (12.2 degrees Celsius).

A minuscule percentage of a degree warmer than the third-warmest year, 2012, was last year.

The gulf’s average temperature exceeded 53 degrees during only those three years in recorded history (11.7 degrees Celsius).

According to the report, additional data further support the Gulf of Maine’s role as a long-term warming region.

According to the research, the average monthly sea surface temperature was among the three highest on record in nine out of the year’s twelve months.

According to the report, the gulf’s highest monthly average sea surface temperature was reached in November and December.

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