A report released by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in February ranked 2022 as the second warmest year ever recorded for the Gulf. The report says the Gulf's average sea surface temperature (SST) in 2022 was 53.66o F., which was 3.72o above the long-term average and just 0.43o below the record of 54.1o set in 2021. The most extreme temperatures in 2022 occurred in November and December, each setting new records for the highest monthly average SST in the Gulf of Maine.
The GMRI report noted that since the early 1980s, the rate of warming in the Gulf of Maine, 0.86o F. per decade, has been more than triple that of the world’s oceans.
Nine of the 10 warmest years on record for the Gulf have occurred within the last decade. As for air temperatures, 2022 was the sixth warmest year since global records began in 1880, according to the annual report from the National Centers for Environmental Information, based on data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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