By Andy May I just gave an informal Zoom talk to a small group on measuring climate change through temperatures. The host, Dave Siegel, recorded it and has posted the presentation here, if you want to view it. It is about 15 minutes, plus some discussion afterword. The PowerPoint slides can be downloaded here, andContinue reading “Best Climate Change Temperatures”
Category Archives: Ocean Temperature
Why do the HadSST Sea-Surface Temperatures Trend Down?
By Andy May The simple answer is that the portion of the ocean, roughly 54%, that has HadSST values is getting cooler. But Nick Stokes doesn’t believe that. His idea is that the coverage of the polar regions is increasing fast enough that, year-by-year, the additional cooler cells are causing the “true” upward trend inContinue reading “Why do the HadSST Sea-Surface Temperatures Trend Down?”
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Ocean Temperatures, what do we really know?
By Andy May This is the last in my current series of posts on ocean temperatures. In our previous posts we compared land-based measurements to sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) and discussed problems and contradictions in the land-based measurements (see here). This first post was overly long and complicated, but I needed to lay a foundation beforeContinue reading “Ocean Temperatures, what do we really know?”
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Sea-Surface Temperature Anomalies
By Andy May My previous post on sea-surface temperature (SST) differences between HadSST and ERSST generated a lively discussion. Some, this author included, asserted that the Hadley Centre HadSST record and NOAA’s ERSST (the Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature) record could be used as is, and did not need to be turned into anomalies fromContinue reading “Sea-Surface Temperature Anomalies”
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Sea-Surface Temperatures: Hadley Centre v. NOAA
By Andy May My last post compared actual sea-surface temperature (SST) estimates to one another to see how well they agreed. It was not a pretty sight; the various estimates covered a range of global average SSTs from ~14°C to almost 20°C. In addition, some SSTs were declining with time and others were increasing. WhileContinue reading “Sea-Surface Temperatures: Hadley Centre v. NOAA”
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The Ocean Mixed Layer, SST, and Climate Change
By Andy May As described in my previous post, the ocean “mixed layer” is sandwiched between the very thin “skin” layer at the ocean surface and the deep ocean. The skin layer loses thermal energy (“heat”) to the atmosphere primarily through evaporation, gains thermal energy from the Sun during the day, and constantly attempts toContinue reading “The Ocean Mixed Layer, SST, and Climate Change”
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Sea surface skin temperature
By Andy May In previous posts, see here and here, I’ve tried to show that because the oceans cover 71% of Earth and they contain 99% of the thermal energy stored on the Earth’s surface, they dominate the speed and magnitude of climate changes. In all my posts the Earth’s surface is defined as everythingContinue reading “Sea surface skin temperature”
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Ocean Temperature Update
By Andy May A considerable amount of new information on ocean temperature has been gathered since I last wrote about the subject in 2016 here. In my last post on GHCN and the National Temperature Index, it appeared that ocean temperature trends and the thermal energy distribution in oceans dominate climate change. Land-based weather stationsContinue reading “Ocean Temperature Update”
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The phytoplankton decline, is there anything to it?
By Andy May We have been told that the phytoplankton population is declining rapidly around the world and, of course, the cause is climate change. Phytoplankton is the base of the ocean food chain and it accounts for about half of global primary productivity or organic matter creation (Boyce, Lewis and Worm 2010). Phytoplankton isContinue reading “The phytoplankton decline, is there anything to it?”
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Do humans harm the environment?
By Andy May This is the first of seven posts on the potential costs and hazards of human-caused global warming and the impact of humans on the environment in general. The IPCC WGII AR5 Technical Summary, defines “hazards” on page 39: “The potential occurrence of a natural or human-induced physical event or trend or physicalContinue reading “Do humans harm the environment?”
