Dr. Damià Gomis, a physicist and professor of Earth Physics at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), warned this Thursday that the effects of climate change are already visible in the Balearic Islands and will continue to intensify until the end of the century if decisive measures are not taken to curb them. He made this statement at a conference organized by the Climate Academy, where he detailed the trends showing the direction in which the archipelago's climate is evolving. Gomis, director of the UIB's Interdisciplinary Laboratory on Climate Change, noted that the global temperature has increased by 1.20°C between the pre-industrial period and the decade of 2014-2023, but by 2024 the increase will reach 1.55°C. One of the direct effects of this warming is the rise in sea level, which has been increasing by an average of 3 millimeters per year since 2000. In the Balearic Islands – as in the rest of the Mediterranean – the temperature increase is even faster than the global average. One of the distinctive features of warming in the region, he explained, is the premature arrival of summer conditions due to a significant warming of spring. Since winters are changing less, the transition between seasons is becoming increasingly abrupt. This increase also implies another worrying phenomenon: the rise in heat waves, which are more frequent, longer lasting, and more intense, with a potentially very serious impact on human health. Regarding the sea, Gomis emphasized that in 2024 the average surface temperature of the Mediterranean exceeded 28°C for the first time since records began. In 2025, the global average was slightly lower, but in specific areas the situation was critical. As of June 30, 2025, the average surface temperature of the Balearic Sea was 27.4°C – 4.6°C above normal – and reached 30.5°C in southwest Mallorca, at the Dragonera buoy, during a marine heatwave that lasted for two weeks.