Category Archives: Ocean Temperature

Earth Energy Imbalance: The Sun versus CO2

Do solar and greenhouse gas radiation affect ocean heat content in the same way?

Is the Ocean Surface a boundary condition?

The ocean skin layer is not a boundary condition or infinitesimally small surface and should not be treated as such.

Efficacy of downwelling IR

Is 90% of increasing ocean heat content due to man-made greenhouse gases as claimed by the consensus and the IPCC?

Musings on the AMO

By Andy May We hear a lot about the AMO, or the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. How much does it influence the global mean surface temperature or GMST? Exactly what is the AMO? These are the issues we will discuss. First let’s look at various definitions of the AMO.

The Weather and Climate of World War II

How accurate are the NOAA and Hadley Centre sea surface temperature corrections?

What is the Global Average SST?

By Andy May This post can be read in German here. The global average SST (Sea Surface Temperature) is a very important component of the global average surface temperature for the simple reason that the global ocean covers almost 71% of Earth’s surface. So, we downloaded the gridded SST data from 1850 through 2024 fromContinue reading “What is the Global Average SST?”

Best Climate Change Temperatures

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”

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?”

The Ocean Mixed Layer, SST, and Climate Change

This post was updated 3/14/2026 mainly to bring some of the figures up to date, but I also fixed a minor bug in the R code. The data used was updated through 2025, when possible. By Andy May As described in my previous post, the ocean “mixed layer” is sandwiched between the very thin “skin”Continue reading “The Ocean Mixed Layer, SST, and Climate Change”

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”