The Canary Islands Oceanic Time-Series Station (ESTOC), located 112 kilometers north of the archipelago and 3,610 meters deep and operated by the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN), confirms in its latest records the sustained rise in sea temperature in the islands.
This infrastructure is part of the European networks EMSO-ERIC and ICOS and is key for the long-term monitoring of meteorological and oceanographic parameters in the North Atlantic, as detailed this Monday by PLOCAN in a statement.
A team of researchers and technicians from PLOCAN, aboard the oceanographic vessel 'Pelagia' (from the Netherlands), recovered the observatory for the installation of new sensors that will guarantee the continuity of observations on oceanographic variability at this strategic point.
The station employs advanced technologies in its fixed structure (deep mooring and surface buoy) to collect essential data on temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, pCO2 (partial pressure of carbon dioxide), currents, and pigments.
Among the most relevant data obtained from ESTOC are the observations of sea surface temperature (SST).
The comparative analysis of sea surface temperatures between the average of the North Atlantic -between the equator and Greenland and from the east to the west coast- and the specific data collected from ESTOC corresponding to the period between February 2024 and March 2025, has revealed significant patterns for the past year and the first quarter of the current year.
The ESTOC station has been recording data since 1994, with average temperatures of 18.5 degrees.
During the first months of 2024, seasonally the coldest, temperatures higher than usual were recorded, reaching 20 degrees.
In the same period of 2025, the average temperature was 19.7 degrees, which are still values above the usual.
In this way, the latest data confirm the sustained increase in sea temperature in the Canary Islands.
"The records from the first months of this year 2025 indicate temperatures slightly lower than those observed in 2024, but still higher than usual. The data also reflected a marked cold anomaly during July 2024, when the temperature dropped significantly," explains Andrés Cianca, technologist at PLOCAN.
The researcher warns that "the ESTOC station reflects greater daily variability and is more influenced by local and mesoscale phenomena than the average series of the North Atlantic, phenomena that generate variability as a consequence of the mixing of deeper waters, that is, colder waters. However, it recovered later, returning to anomalously high values towards the end of the year."
Cianca explains that "these thermal anomalies are framed in a context of warming of the ocean waters already documented for the Canary region, reflecting a progressive pattern that has been manifesting itself during the last decades, a trend that agrees with the climate projections for the Canary Islands, which anticipate a significant increase in temperatures, which could reach up to 4.2°C by the end of this century in the most unfavorable scenario, according to the Clivar report."
The technologist highlights that these winter temperature anomalies affect the exchange of oxygen and nutrients in the ocean, which are reduced, which can affect the growth of phytoplankton and marine cycles, which, in turn, can have possible consequences for the marine ecosystem.
The risk of the Punta Grande Power Plant
The Lanzarote Futuro project includes lines of action to adapt critical infrastructures exposed to the rise in sea level due to climate change. Among them, the Punta Grande Power Plant. In this line, it defends the option of dismantling the plant and "replacing it with sustainable alternatives that guarantee the electrical supply."
