00:00 It's just after dawn, but Josep Pascual is a man on a mission.
00:07 He's heading out to sea. The 73-year-old collects weather data on land and in the water.
00:17 I use these special thermometers that you can lower into the sea.
00:30 After around five minutes, they flip over and display the temperature in the deep.
00:37 Pascual knows all about the sea and how to measure it. For over half a century, the topographer
00:47 and son of a fisher has pursued his hobby off the coast of Lesartit in northeastern
00:53 Spain. Weather permitting, he goes to sea twice a week to document water temperatures
00:58 in the Mediterranean.
01:05 It's my life, my place. It's almost like a drug. Ever since I was little, it's thrilled
01:12 me. Mainly because data like this didn't exist when I was 15 or 20 years old.
01:22 Having reached his first measuring point, Josep lowers one of his devices. It shows
01:29 that at a depth of 30 meters, the water temperature is close to 16 degrees Celsius. Pascual says
01:35 the sea surface has warmed by a full degree since he began taking measurements.
01:42 It's worrying because rising temperatures cause the water to expand, and with it, the
01:51 sea level to rise. We can see this on the beaches, too. Each year they get half a meter
01:58 narrower. I verified it. The beach here has shrunk by 15 meters since 1993.
02:07 Along with the temperature, Pascual measures the water's salt content, providing vital
02:17 info that fishermen like Isaac Moya have come to rely on.
02:24 Our work is closely connected to this data. If we knew a bit more about it all, like he
02:29 does, we'd be better fishers, for sure.
02:36 There are species of fish that can't cope with the rising temperatures. And yet others
02:45 that are used to warmer water now come up north from more southern areas.
02:52 Josep Pascual meticulously notes the coordinates and measurements. Then, at the local tourist
03:00 info office, he transfers the data to a website used by scientists worldwide.
03:08 NASA saw my data in an American trade magazine and compared them to their own findings. They
03:14 said now they know their satellite instruments are working correctly.
03:21 Pascual's collection of years of data has also made an impression in Barcelona. At the
03:27 Institute of Marine Sciences, researchers probe how climate change affects plants and
03:32 animals -- and humans.
03:37 Especially the Arctic is affected, says oceanographer Jordi Salat. But so is the Mediterranean.
03:44 We're observing bigger changes on the water's surface than in other seas around the world.
03:51 There are regions we call "hot spots" and the Mediterranean is one of them.
03:58 Pascual's hobby has grown in importance in this era of climate change, which is why it's
04:04 his mission to keep taking measurements and do his bit to slow down global warming.
04:12 It's painful because it's not a natural process. You can see how everything's changing, how
04:19 we're changing it. Everything's interconnected. Even if only a small part becomes destabilized,
04:31 everything's thrown out of balance.
04:37 Josep Pascual has no children, but hopes to find someone to carry on his legacy. Still,
04:43 he plans to keep going out to sea and conducting his measurements for as long as he can.
04:48 (water splashing)
04:51 (water splashing)
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