00:00Have you had a dip in the sea yet this summer? Well, as the sun bids its farewell, it marks
00:05the end of the UK's hottest summer on record.
00:08But it's not just us on land that have felt the effects.
00:12Since the beginning of the summer, beaches across Kent have recorded sea temperatures hotter than usual.
00:18Here at Mermaid Beach in Folkestone, I'm going to speak to someone who gets in the sea every day to
00:23see if she's noticed a difference.
00:25Yeah, it's felt so much warmer, unseasonally warmer. Like, you know, I went in in like June and July and
00:31it was already feeling like August slash September.
00:34I've never felt it this warm before, yeah, ever in my life growing up here.
00:39And it's been, I've seen more sea swimmers than ever getting in in the summer this year.
00:44It's nice in a way because we've had lovely sea temperature, but then again, that concern of global warming is
00:49always in the back of my mind.
00:50During some days in the summer, coastal Kent areas were some of the hottest in the UK.
00:56Between May and August, Folkestone's sea temperature sat at least two and a half degrees higher than the average.
01:02But warmer seas don't just mean easier bathing for us. It can have detrimental impacts on marine life.
01:09It can mean species that are found further south can move, reshaping ecosystems and changing the wildlife we see on
01:16Kent's coasts.
01:17Increasing the temperature is going to have an impact on species in the water, just like increasing the temperature on
01:25land has an impact on us.
01:28So all of us can relate to when it's a few degrees higher in temperature, our bodies feel stress.
01:35The difference between us and marine species is that they're much more sensitive to it.
01:40What's concerning about that is then that we have changes to the entire food web.
01:47It impacts the whole ecological community because, for example, you could have a species that's a top predator in one
01:54area that disappears and you see a growth in other species in that area.
01:58While Kent's sea temperatures are just a drop in the ocean compared to the overall picture of climate change,
02:03the Met Office say studying it will only become more important as the country's weather changes in the coming years.
02:10Chloe Brewster for KMTV in Folkestone.
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