Monday, July 18, 2016

The Global "El Nino": SST Anomalies Above .5 C Globally for a Year

Each month NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) the former NCDC, releases latitude ranges of global land and sea surface temperature anomalies that help depict where global temperature variation is occurring on land and in the ocean. The monthly data covers January, 1880 through May, 2016. The anomalies are based on a 1971-2000 climatology, and thus the anomalies are higher than the current 1981-2010 anomalies generally publicized.

Source for the 1971-2000 base: see Read Me: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/noaaglobaltemp/operational/timeseries/readme.timeseries

Latitude Ranged Temperature Anomalies Source: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/noaaglobaltemp/operational/timeseries/

This posts demonstrates how Arctic Sea surface temperatures are changing global ocean heat and climate impacts. The anomalies are based on the ERSSTv4 data set, using the NCDC 1971-2000 base.

First, here is the global ocean anomalies from 90S-90N, for Jan 1880-May 2016. The climb since the 1970's is obvious, and is impacted by increasing global warming caused by CO2 rise.
Source: NCEI/NCDC (link above), Graphics A4R

When we add the sea surface temperature anomalies by Northern and Southern Hemisphere, it is apparent that northern CO2 emissions have had a stronger impact on warming the Northern Hemisphere oceans. The NH SSTA's jumped considerably in 2014-2016, peaking at .95C above the 1971-2000 base - almost a "Moderate El Nino" in strength.
Source: NCEI/NCDC (link above), Graphics A4R

The greatest contributor to the Northern Hemisphere SST anomaly has been warming in the Arctic, from 60-90N. While there is stronger variability month to month, overall, the Arctic warming is having a major impact on global ocean warming overall. Here is the monthly detail from 1950 to May, 2016. The blue line being the global SSTA, the red line the NH, and the green line revealing the jump in warming beginning to 2003 in 60-90N. If the Arctic had a Nino scale, it would be in an almost constant El Nino state for the last several years. Since March, 2009, there has only been one month below .50 C.
Source: NCEI/NCDC (link above), Graphics A4R

So what does this warming look like mapped through time? Here is the 1880-May 2016 GISS TEMP data set visualization for ERSSTv4 SSTA with the 1971-2000 base. Anything orange, red or brown is basically an "El Nino" level of anomaly.
Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/time_series.html

What the data reveals is clear compelling evidence of warming, much of it in the Arctic. It also reveals the "Global El Nino" We are now living with.

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