August Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) are now available, and we see an upward spike in ocean temps everywhere, led by sharp increases in the Tropics and SH, reversing for now the downward trajectory from the previous 12 months.  It seems likely the Tropical warming in particular factored into the active hurricane season peaking this month and next.

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.

The chart below shows SST monthly anomalies as reported in HadSST3 starting in 2015 through August 2017.

In May despite a slight rise in the Tropics, declines in both hemispheres and globally caused SST cooling to resume after an upward bump in April.  Then in July a large drop showed in both in the Tropics and in SH, declining over 4 months.  The sharp upturn in August in the Tropics is the unusual feature this month, along with SH rising, resulting in a global average matching the previous two Augusts. Meanwhile the NH is peaking in August as in the past two years, but somewhat lower.  Despite the August warming, ENSO has gone below neutral toward La Nina, and no one expects a rise like 2015 in the coming months.

Note that higher temps in 2015 and 2016 were first of all due to a sharp rise in Tropical SST, beginning in March 2015, peaking in January 2016, and steadily declining back to its beginning level. Secondly, the Northern Hemisphere added two bumps on the shoulders of Tropical warming, with peaks in August of each year. Also, note that the global release of heat was not dramatic, due to the Southern Hemisphere offsetting the Northern one.

Note:  Last month someone asked about HadSST calculations, especially as the Global appeared to be a simple average of NH and SH, which would be misleading.  My query to Met Office received this clarifying response:

My colleague in the Climate Monitoring and Research team has advised the following:

For HadSST3, we take an area-weighted average of all the grid boxes with data in to calculate the global average. We don’t calculate the two hemispheric series and then average them. In the case of SST, this wouldn’t work because the southern hemisphere ocean area is larger than the northern hemisphere.

Kind regards,  Misha,  Weather Desk Climate Advisor

Summary

We have seen lots of claims about the temperature records for 2016 and 2015 proving dangerous man made warming.  At least one senator stated that in a confirmation hearing.  Yet HadSST3 data for the last two years show how obvious is the ocean’s governing of global average temperatures.

USS Pearl Harbor deploys Global Drifter Buoys in Pacific Ocean

The best context for understanding these two years 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 these years.

Solar energy accumulates massively in the ocean and is variably released during circulation events.