New England ocean warming slows but temperatures remain high

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SCARBOROUGH, Maine (AP) — The waters off New England had another warm year but didn’t heat up as fast as earlier this decade, bucking a trend of higher warming worldwide, said scientists who study the Atlantic Ocean near Maine.

The Gulf of Maine, which touches three New England states and Canada, emerged as a test case for climate change about a decade ago because it is warming much faster than most of the world’s oceans. The gulf is home to some of the country’s most valuable seafood species and is critical to the American lobster industry.

The gulf’s annual sea surface temperature last year was 51.5 degrees Fahrenheit (10.8 degrees Celsius), according to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland. That was more than 0.88 F (0.49 C) above the long-term average from 1991 to 2020, the institute said in a report released this month.

Although last year was the gulf’s 12th warmest year on record, it was down from the fifth warmest a year earlier, the report stated. The gulf also set back-to-back records for warmest years ever in 2021 and 2022, so it was the third consecutive year of a decline in temperature.

“The conditions seen in the Gulf of Maine were a departure from the record-setting temperatures seen elsewhere in the North Atlantic and across the world’s oceans,” the report said.

The gulf’s average annual sea surface temperatures have been warming at a rate of 0.84 degrees Fahrenheit per decade from 1982 to 2024, the report said — nearly triple the rate of the world’s oceans.

The warming of the Gulf of Maine has gotten the attention of the seafood industry because scientists have linked it to the decline in baby lobsters settling in the area. The gulf is also home to vulnerable seabirds such as Atlantic puffins and marine mammals such as the North Atlantic right whale.

The Gulf of Maine Research Institute has identified several factors that have caused the swift warming of the gulf, one of which is that climate change is strengthening the Gulf Stream, and that brings warmer water northward. Another factor in that the cold Labrador Current is weakening, and that means it no longer acts as a buffer to incoming warmer waters, the institute has said.

The report stated that 2024 included winter months with below average temperatures while June was the second warmest on record. It also stated warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures were concentrated in summer and fall while colder-than-average temperatures occurred in winter months at the start and end of the year.