The superyacht Bayesian sank off the coast of Sicily on Aug. 19, killing at least six people aboard. The vessel was moored in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea when a sudden, violent storm created a waterspout, or sea tornado, that quickly caused the ship to founder. Experts were mystified as to how the typically calm waters of the Mediterranean Sea could create conditions for such a rapid storm.
The answer may lie in climate change, as many scientists have begun pointing to the increasing temperature of the Mediterranean Sea as a possible culprit for the unusual storm patterns. This warming of the water, scientists say, is likely a significant contributor to these types of weather events — and some are now worried that storms like the one that sank the Bayesian could be here to stay.
What did the commentators say?
The Mediterranean is "prized for its crystal clear, tranquil waters," but "these waters can still be dangerous," and it's "only becoming more so as human-caused climate change warms the sea, whipping up stronger and more intense storms," said Laura Paddison for CNN. It is clear that "climate change is leading to more intense storms, some of which are fueled by warm ocean water." While "ocean heat is affected by natural climate fluctuations," scientists believe it is "being supercharged by human-caused global warming driven by burning fossil fuels."
The Mediterranean Sea continues to warm. The "water temperatures around Sicily are approximately 30 degrees" Celsius, or 86 degrees Fahrenheit, Luca Mercalli, the president of the Italian Meteorological Society, said to CNN. These are among the hottest ambient water temperatures on the planet, which scientists say could be contributing to events like storms and waterspouts. The International Panel on Climate Change "has not found a definite link — there hasn't been much research into how climate change may be affecting waterspouts — but experts say that the conditions for waterspouts to form are happening more often," Alec Luhn said for Wired.
Water temperatures "are now at unprecedented levels," and a "2022 study of 234 waterspouts in the Spanish Mediterranean over the past three decades found that they were more likely to break out when the sea surface was warmer, especially above 23 degrees Celsius (73 degrees Fahrenheit)," said Luhn. In the case of the Bayesian, the storm that caused the yacht to sink was "very violent, very intense, a lot of water and I think a turning system like a tornado," Karsten Borner, the captain of a boat that was moored next to the Bayesian, said to Reuters. The water is "way too hot for the Mediterranean and this causes for sure heavy storms, like we had one week ago on the Balearics, like we had two years ago in Corsica and so on," he said.
What next?
Since there hasn't been that much conclusive research on waterspouts and climate change, it remains unclear how much of a role the warm water plays, and whether or not it will lead to a significant spike in storms. Experts remain "wary of confirming a definite link with climate change," said National Geographic. This is because waterspouts "are a very short-lived and local scale phenomena, and therefore difficult to attribute to impacts of climate change," a spokesperson for the Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said to National Geographic.
While climate change does "make sea surface temperatures warmer, it's unclear how it will affect the other conditions needed to create waterspouts," said National Geographic. Waterspouts "need a temperature difference between air and sea. If the air is warming at the same rate as the bodies of water, an increase in waterspouts is unlikely," David Sills, the executive director of the Northern Tornadoes Project, said to the outlet.
Other scientists, though, are continuing to throw up caution signs about future bad weather in the Mediterranean. Conclusively linking waterspouts and climate change is a "step too far at the moment," Peter Inness, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, said to CNN, but "global warming — and specifically warming of the Mediterranean Sea — is quite likely to lead to an intensification of a number of potentially dangerous weather systems in that region."
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