October 10, 2023 — The average surface temperature of the Gulf of Maine this summer was 61.01 degrees, 1.91 degrees above the 30-year seasonal average, making it the eighth hottest summer since satellite data has been collected, according to a new report from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.
But conditions in the gulf this summer were unusually cool when compared to recent years, the institute concluded. The three previous summers had been noteworthy for their extended marine heatwaves, part of a long-term trend of unseasonably warm summer and fall temperatures since 2012.
“While the summer of 2023 was ‘only’ the eighth-warmest summer on record in the Gulf of Maine, the broader North Atlantic region was off-the-charts hot,” said Dave Reidmiller, director of the institute’s Climate Center. “It’s clear that the long-term warming trend continues unabated.”
Researchers believe this trend is the result of a distinct regime shift: a combination of the widening of the Gulf Stream, changes in the Labrador Current and the weakening of a large system of currents that carries warm water from the tropics north and keeps the sea’s heat and energy well mixed.
The trend means coastal communities must continue to prepare for a warmer world, Reidmiller said.