How weird was the Med Sea heatwave?

More or Less

BBC

Business, Mathematics, Science, News Commentary, News

4.6 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

In early July, the Mediterranean Sea experienced a marine heatwave. The surface of the water reached temperatures of 30 degrees in some places. A social media post at the time claimed that some of these sea temperatures were so different to the normal sea temperature at this time of year, that the sea was experiencing a “1-in-216,000,000,000-year sea temperature anomaly”. This would suggest that the likelihood of the event was on a timescale far longer than the amount of time the entire universe has existed. Is the claim true? Dr Jules Kajtar, a physical oceanographer from the National Oceanography Centre, takes a look at the statistics. We heard about this story because a listener spotted it and emailed the team. Get in touch if you’ve seen a number you think we should look at. [email protected]

Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Sound mix: Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and thanks for downloading the more or less podcast. We're the programme that looks at the
0:04.3	numbers in the news and in life and in the sea. And I'm Lizzie McNeil.
0:11.6	Listener John O'Malley emailed in to more or less at BBC.co.uk, which, by the way,
0:17.9	anyone can do, to ask about a tweet that appeared to be making a somewhat
0:22.0	staggering claim. The post, seen by more than a million people and or bots on the social
0:28.3	media site, was from an account called At Met Forecast UK. Talking about how hot the Mediterranean
0:34.8	sea got at the start of July, they stated that...
0:38.3	The Med is experiencing a one in 216 billion year sea temperature anomaly.
0:43.3	This, as the Post pointed out, was a significantly longer period of time than planet Earth has been in existence.
0:50.3	Indeed, it is many more times than our best estimates of the age of the entire universe.
0:57.0	The massive scale of this anomaly, so the account claimed, proved that climate change was real.
1:02.5	So, does the statistical logic make sense?
1:08.9	There's no doubt that the temperatures in the Mediterranean this year have been extreme.
1:13.9	This is Jules Keiter, a physical oceanographer working at the National Oceanography Centre in the UK.
1:19.7	The Mediterranean-wide average temperature during June and July, for example, were about
1:26.0	three to four degrees hotter than the
1:28.7	1985 to 2005 me.
1:31.1	Now, we're talking about degrees centigrade here, and Jules is comparing the temperature now
1:35.6	against the average sea temperature at the same time of year in that period from the
1:40.7	1980s to the naughties.
1:42.9	But why start in the 1980s? Well, that's when the good quality
1:47.6	data starts. The most accurate way that we measure sea temperatures at present is from satellites.
	...

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