South Florida estuaries are warming faster than global oceans

Abstract

From extensive evaluations, it is found that, of all satellite data products of sea surface temperature (SST), MODIS SST is the most appropriate in assessing long-term trends of water temperature in the South Florida estuaries. Long-term SST data show significant warming trends in these estuaries during both daytime (0.55 °C/decade) and nighttime (0.42 °C/decade) between 2000 and 2021. The warming rates are faster during winter (0.70 °C/decade and 0.67 °C/decade for daytime and nighttime, respectively) than during summer (0.48 °C/decade and 0.28 °C/decade for daytime and nighttime, respectively). Overall, the South Florida estuaries experienced rapid warming over the past two decades, 1.7 and 1.3 times faster than the Gulf of Mexico (0.33 °C/decade and 0.32 °C/decade for daytime and nighttime), and 6.9 and 4.2 times faster than the global oceans (0.08 °C/decade and 0.10 °C/decade for daytime and nighttime).