Finland has been suffering from a heat wave for about two months, with sea temperatures reaching five degrees Celsius above average in some areas, a marine expert said on Monday.
Unusually high sea temperatures, which have persisted for several weeks, have been observed along Finland’s Baltic coast in recent months, added Veera Haapaniemi, a marine expert at the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
“We are experiencing an exceptionally warm period in the Baltic Sea,” she continued.
The Baltic Sea is surrounded by Germany, Poland, Russia, Finland, Sweden and the Baltic States.
The relatively shallow sea is known to be extremely sensitive to changes in the environment and climate and has already warmed at twice the rate of the global oceans as a whole.
The entire Baltic Sea experienced marine heat waves this summer, Haapaniemi said.
In the Gulf of Finland, the current heatwave has lasted for 50 days, while other Finnish coastal waters have seen unusually high temperatures for more than three weeks.
The expert explained that “these extreme weather events are expected to become more frequent and intense as a result of climate change,” pointing to a heat wave that lasted about 20 days at the beginning of the summer.
She stressed that “exceptional temperatures of course affect marine ecosystems.”
The Finnish Meteorological Institute’s reference data is based on sea temperatures collected between 1991 and 2020.
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