The best context for understanding decadal temperature changes comes from the world’s sea surface temperatures (SST), for several reasons:
- The ocean covers 71% of the globe and drives average temperatures;
- SSTs have a constant water content, (unlike air temperatures), so give a better reading of heat content variations;
- A major El Nino was the dominant climate feature in recent years.
HadSST is generally regarded as the best of the global SST data sets, and so the temperature story here comes from that source, the latest version being HadSST3. More on what distinguishes HadSST3 from other SST products at the end.
The Current Context
The year end report below showed 2020 rapidly cooling in all regions. The anomalies have continued to drop sharply and are now well below the mean since 1995. This Global Cooling was also evident in the UAH Land and Ocean air temperatures ( See March 2021 Ocean…
View original post 1,405 more words
Climate Collections 