Madrid, Jun 30 (IANS): Temperatures of the seas around Spain have reached a record high in June, according to a latest research.

The research said that measurements for the first three weeks of June taken by a network of deep sea buoys around the Spanish coast showed an increase in water temperature of between 0.5 and 2.5 degrees Celsius for the period between 2007 and 2017, reports Xinhua news agency.

The biggest increase in water temperature is in the Mediterranean, where a buoy off the coast of Tarragona registered a 2.5 degrees Celsius increase over the past 10 years, reaching a record of 27 degrees in 2016.

Another buoy off the coast of Cabo de Gata in southeast Spain measured temperatures of 24.3 degrees Celsius, 2.4 higher than 10 years ago.

However, it is not just in the Mediterranean that sea temperatures are rising. A buoy close to the city Bilbao on the northern coast has recorded water temperature of 23.5 degrees, while the water is 1.25 per cent warmer off Cape Silleiro in the northwestern region of Galicia.

Ana Casal, a climatologist with the Spanish state meteorological agency AEMET, explained that sea temperatures were likely to rise further during this summer. Although it takes time for the water to retain heat, once it has warmed up, it also "takes time to cool down".