​The buoy at Cabo de Gata (Almeria) recorded 27.9 degrees Celsius on 25 July

Record water temperatures in the Mediterranean

• The buoys at Dragonera (Balearic Islands) and Valencia registered record highs for the month of June.

29/07/2022 (Public body Puertos del Estado). In view of the persistent extreme heat affecting Europe this summer, we have examined the water temperature recorded at the Puertos del Estado buoys in the Mediterranean Sea. The objective was to determine whether the heat waves are having an impact on the measurements.

One of the Puertos del Estado Deep Sea buoys, the one at Cabo de Gata, was found to have set a new record for water temperature since 2001. It was on Monday, 25 July: de 2022 a las 17h GMT y la temperatura alcanzada ha sido de 27.93 °C.

Two other buoys in this network reached a record highs for the month of June this year. One of them was the buoy at Dragonera: , con datos desde 2009, que it recorded 29.46 °C on 18 June 2022, at 2:00 p.m. GMT. This buoy's all-time high was 31.27 °C, measured on 31 July 2018 at 3:00 p.m. GMT. The other was the buoy in Valencia, which has been collecting water temperature data since 2005 and measured 26.9 °C on 20 June 2022 at 3:00 p.m. GMT. Its all-time high, 28.65 °C, was recorded on 7 August 2015 at 3:00 p.m. GMT.

These three buoys are part of the Puertos del Estado Deep Sea Network and measure the temperature of the water using a 3-meter deep sensor.

Additional, one of the buoys in the Puertos del Estado Coastal Network, the one in Tarragona, con datos de temperatura desde 2013,  has also recorded new monthly highs this year for May and June. On 22 May 2022 at 4 p.m. GMT, it recorded 24.1 ºC; and on 17 June 2022 at 3 p.m. GMT, it measured 27.8 ºC. The all-time high for this buoy was recorded on 17 July 2013, with 30.5 ºC. The buoys in this network use a water temperature located at a depth of half a metre.

The other buoys moored in the Mediterranean have not produced any new records.

The extreme heat has been very persistent and there are still several weeks of summer left, so further analysis will be done later to assess the impact produced over the whole summer.

• THE PUERTOS DEL ESTADO MONITORING NETWORKS

Puertos del Estado has a Deep Sea Bouy Network including 15 monitoring stations, a Coastal Bouys Network including 10 monitoring stations, a 36-Tide Gauge Network along the Spanish coast and a High Frequency Radar Network with 9 operational stations. All of this information is received in real time and managed by Puertos del Estado.