The Mediterranean Sea reached its highest temperature on record Thursday, Spanish researchers told AFP on Friday, breaking the record from July 2023.

“The maximum sea surface temperature record was broken in the Mediterranean Sea yesterday... with a daily median of 28.90C,” Spain’s leading institute of marine sciences said.

The previous record took place on July 24, 2023, with a median value of 28.71C.

These preliminary findings are taken from satellite data from the European Union’s Copernicus Earth observation program.

It means that for two successive summers the Mediterranean will have been warmer than during the exceptional summer heatwave of 2003, when a daily median was measured at 28.25C on August 23, a record that had stood for twenty years.

Such temperatures threaten marine life. During earlier heatwaves about 50 species including corals and molluscs were decimated.

The Mediterranean region has long been classified as a hotspot of climate change.