A bit brief ink: Ocean temps highest ever on record (but maybe it’s the new, changing normal)
The US’s National Climatic Data Center announced yesterday that ocean temperatures hit a record for June-August, and August itself saw the warmest seawater ever, too. Land warmth was high too, but not quite high enough for a full global record breaker (and yes, much of the US by contrast was rather chilly). Before listing the agencies and stories on this, let’s look at one in particular for a digression on usage.
The topic is normal vs. average. The brief and unbylined Associated Press story says worldwide sea surface temperatures during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer were “1.04 degree higher than normal for the period.” Nobody is going to be terribly misled by that. The Tracker is not picking on AP. But wouldn’t “what once was normal” or “average” be closer to the mark? We have a trend upward going back decades now. Normal for an up-trending measurement is to be above average. Would the parent of a ten year old say his height is above normal because it’s now five feet, and for the last two years it has averaged four feet six? Perhaps the temperature is in fact normal for an Earth with rising CO2 levels of the pattern our Earth has seen. What is certain is the departure from average. Average or some reference to what used-to-be, seems the right usage for this topic.
This triggers a related pet peeve – weather stories that say temperatures or rainfall totals etc. are above or below normal. What is normal is for weather to jitter above and below average – hot spells are normal, droughts and wet years are normal (and when one has the flu, a 101 degree temperature is not abnormal. With influenza normally comes fever). What is rare with weather are years where everything hits the average. Writers commonly try to vary the terms they use, switching from one synonym to another for varieties sake – countenance to mien to face to aspect and so on in describing how someone looks. But for weather and climate variation first comparison references ought, one offers, be to the average.
Other stories:
- USA Today – Doyle Rice: Earth’s oceans had warmest summer on record ; Danged axial tilt! To be a twee more exact, half had its warmest summer. The southern half had its warmest winter.
- Bloomberg – Jim Efstathiou Jr. : World’s Oceans Were Warmest on Record in June Through August ; He includes the latest stats on polar sea ice – way below average in the north, slightly above in the south.
- Guardian (UK) Suzanne Goldenberg (filed from US): Ocean surfaces have warmest summer on record, US report finds / El Niño contributed largely to rise in temperatures ;
- Baltimore Sun (blog) Frank Roylance: Few 90-degree days here, but the planet was warm ; He starts local, gets global context – and links at the end directly to the NOAA press release via a “read more here” msg.
- Queensland Courier Mail (Australia) Brian Williams:Heat Waves, El Nino heading for Queensland ; Another local lead-in to the NOAA news, this one from down under. No confusion here over where it’s winter and where it’s summer. And in Australia’s waning winter it is, in many places. HOT.
- NYTimes DotEarth Blog – Andrew C. Revkin: Updates on Warm Seas and Arctic Ice ;
Grist for the Mill: NOAA/NCDC Press Release (in which press officer John Leslie sticks relentlessly to “average” as his reference point), includes an animation of the globe’s departure from average temps.;
Barely Related News: For a fine animation of Arctic sea ice trends – and a good story too – look at BBC and the account from Jonathan Amos of the resurrection and imminent launch of an ice-measuring satellite. The animation, from US National Snow and Ice Data Center’s figures, is a convincing illustration that sea ice up there is unsteadily but truly melting further as summers go by. It may stagger about like a drunk headed for the bar, but through the stochastism there’s little mistaking the overall trend. Sort of like global temperatures and their shifting average.
Pic hi def ;
Charlie Petit
