Sea-surface temperatures at record levels as climate negotiators meet for pre-COP talks in Tuvalu

Leaders and delegates meeting in Fiji and Tuvalu this week for climate negotiations are doing so against a backdrop of record global sea-surface temperatures for this time of year, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, citing data from the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The meetings are part of the pre-COP talks aimed at highlighting the threat of climate change to small island nations, and serve as a curtain-raiser to the full conference of the party talks to be held next month in Turkiye.

The bureau’s chart for last month showed sea-surface temperature (SST) anomalies spiking above 1°C for the first time in any September.

The bureau noted in report last week that SSTs in August in the region across 60° south to 60° north had reached their highest level on record for any month since records began in 1900, at 1.04 °C above the 1961–1990 average. Data for September from the bureau shows that anomaly edged higher to 1.06 °C.

Warmer waters lift sea levels as oceans expand, adding to the rise caused by glacier and ice sheet melt. In addition, warmer waters in general “can enhance atmospheric moisture and energy that can fuel storms and rain systems, increasing potential for high-intensity rainfall”, the bureau noted.

Mike Kaiser, secretary of the federal department of climate change, energy, the environment and water, noted the risk to Tuvalu from rising sea levels, in a post to his LinkedIn account. Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese will attend the Tuvaluan meeting after joining the Fiji pre-COP meeting in the past couple of days.

Australian waters are mixed, in terms of unusual warmth – but all the main regions are warmer than usual for this time of the year – with parts of the north and north east the only exceptions.

“The sea surface temperature analysis for the week ending 26 September 2026 shows warmer than average waters around most of Australia’s west, south and south-east where SSTs are up to 3 °C above average,” the bureau said.

SSTs in the south west, the Tasman Sea and the southern region were all running at record levels for September, bureau data showed.

As for the outlook, SSTs across most of the Australian region were “forecast to warm over the coming months, particularly to Australia’s west and in the Coral Sea”, the bureau said.

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