Is Global Warming Quickening?
Everyone who can should try and watch the 5 minute clip. The link takes you to a news catch up page. Select Monday 14 March and the clip titled “Is Global warming Quickening?”.
Figure 1 The NASA GISS LOTI (Land Ocean Temperature Index) graphic shown on Channel 4 News. This is a screen capture from the video archive linked above. Take a close look at the gradation of the colour scale that is discussed further below. This image bears no resemblance at all to the current NOAA SST image that appears immediately below the fold.
Sea Surface Temperatures (SST)
Let us begin by comparing the NASA GISS LOTI (Land Ocean Temperature Index) with current SSTs.
Figure 2 The full global SSTs as recorded on 14 March 2016. NOAA SSTs downloaded from this link. If anything I’m more concerned by all that blue. The dying remnants of the El Nino along the Equator cover a vast area that is not captured by this projection while the cold southern ocean covers a relatively small area.
The SSTs present a totally different picture. In fact a worryingly cool picture with the N Atlantic now looking as cool as I’ve seen it, a likely refection of the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) preparing to flip to cool mode. The N Pacific and whole of the Southern Ocean are distinctly cool. How they manage to manufacture record warmth out of this is a story for another day. But how do Figures 1 and 2 appear so different. Part of the answer lies in the colour scale intervals that are chosen.
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