New Global Temperature Map

I added a map of current surface temperature anomalies from the last 3 months of NASA GISS data on my climate data page. I might add maps of other data sets, but right now NASA seems to provide the “cleanest” in the sense that there is less missing data. I’m not sure if they are just faster with their data processing or if they incorporate more data than other datasets. Either way, the differences don’t bother me much, since the time series of various datasets shows reasonable agreement.

There were a lot of news stories awhile back about how 2016 is likely to be the hottest year on record. If we look a further 3 months back we can see much stronger anomalies in the Arctic. There is also a trace of water in the equatorial pacific from the fading El Nino.

2 thoughts on “New Global Temperature Map

  1. Hank Roberts

    Tangential question perhaps. Watching the current hurricane coverage (family in Fla/Ga/NC) I see no mention of sea surface temperature, no graphics of how it’s changing as the hurricane tracks across it, nothing about the second hurricane coming on soon. I understand there’s a persistent high unusually over the Atlantic so the hurricanes aren’t tracking toward the E/NE as usual. I know it’s warm there. Is there anything to say about the heat engines out there? Any predictions?

    Reply
    1. Walter Post author

      I just realized I screwed up the second map in this post! Sorry about that.

      Hank, I’m not surprised that the media doesn’t mention this stuff. weather observations don’t “bleed” enough to “lead”.

      If you look at my tropical cyclone page you’ll notice that the SST in the MDR is warmer than average this year.

      It’s also a bit drier than average (not sure about significance though).

      So in the heat engine paradigm one might argue that this would foster stronger evaporation, which could help strengthen or maintain a hurricane. Unfortunately, the data to really test this idea doesn’t exist to my knowledge.

      Reply

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