Ocean Temps

[kassy]

Or not but Hurricanes have their own thread. 

[Niall Dollard]

Much of coastal southern Norway is presently experiencing a marine heatwave. SST anomaly today off Bergen is +5.3° C

Equally in the Gulf of Finland SSTs have rocketed up to a balmy 15°. The attached image from SMHI shows that the  2008 to 2022 mean water temperature for Gulf of Finland is 8.6° (circled). Over 6° above normal !

[Niall Dollard]

Not surprising then this 100 year old coastal station at the tip of SW Finland broke its May record twice this week.

https://twitter.com/mikarantane/status/1794775277186195592

[kiwichick16]

north atlantic still at record level.....

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/......

last year and this  year have a big gap on the rest

[kassy]

It will be interesting to see how it develops over summer.

ETA: One fun thing to do with the CA map is to hide all then put in the long term average. Then add 2024,2023 etc. Just work backwards.

[Rodius]

It will be interesting to see how it develops over summer.

ETA: One fun thing to do with the CA map is to hide all then put in the long term average. Then add 2024,2023 etc. Just work backwards.

I just did that then I put in the last ten years and the first ten years.
It stands out how there has been a step change between the two brackets and 2023 and 2024 looks like another one could be happening.

[khaeck]

@Rodius,

I observed two step changes before, commented on it, and agree that I expect another one to be occurring atm as well.

Hey, first post on this forum, have been reading since a few years.

I noticed what might be a (known?) pattern in the ocean temp charts.
E.g. first increase around 2001-2002,
then more pronounced around 2014-2016,
and it seems the current EN is causing another jump in ocean temp levels.

From the previous 'jumps', I suspect we may remain in the higher regions we are currently experiencing. While 2001-2002 is no El Nino event, there could be some delayed effect of heating up the ocean 'conveyor belt' during 1997-1998.

Just speculating, if the ocean currents transfer heat around the globe in a cyclic way, with energy unevenly distributed along it's 'conveyor belt', that there is indeed some multi-decadal effect underlying these observed increases?

Maybe you could point me to any literature I have not read on this topic?
(I have not come accross any such literature so far it seems)

[vox_mundi]

Reduced Sulfur Content In Shipping Fuel Associated With Increased Maritime Atmospheric Warming
https://phys.org/news/2024-05-sulfur-content-shipping-fuel-maritime.html

An 80% reduction in sulfur dioxide shipping emissions observed in early 2020 could be associated with substantial atmospheric warming over some ocean regions, according to a modeling study published in Communications Earth & Environment. The sudden decline in emissions was a result of the introduction of the International Maritime Organization's 2020 regulation (IMO 2020), which reduced the maximum sulfur content allowed in shipping fuel from 3.5% to 0.5% to help reduce air pollution.

... Tianle Yuan and colleagues calculated the effect of IMO 2020 on the atmospheric levels of sulfate aerosols over the ocean and how this affected cloud composition. They found substantial reductions in both the levels of atmospheric aerosols and the cloud droplet number density.

The greatest modeled aerosol reductions were in the North Atlantic, the Caribbean Sea, and the South China Sea—the regions with the busiest shipping lanes. The authors then estimated the effect of IMO 2020 on Earth's energy budget (the difference between the energy received from the sun and the energy radiated from the Earth) since 2020. They calculated that the estimated effect is equivalent to 80% of the observed increase in the heat energy retained on Earth over that period.

The authors suggest that the substantial modeled effect of IMO 2020 on Earth's energy budget demonstrates the potential effectiveness of marine cloud brightening as a strategy to temporarily cool the climate. However, they also warn that the intended reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions due to IMO 2020 potentially causing an inadvertent increase in marine atmospheric temperature is an example of a geoengineering termination shock, which could affect regional weather patterns.

Tianle Yuan, Abrupt reduction in shipping emission as an inadvertent geoengineering termination shock produces substantial radiative warming, Communications Earth & Environment (2024)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01442-3

[kassy]

Another interesting article. Good things in pairs and all that.

Here we estimate the regulation leads to a radiative forcing of +0.2 +/- 0.11 Wm−2 averaged over the global ocean.

The amount of radiative forcing could lead to a doubling (or more) of the warming rate in the 2020 s compared with the rate since 1980 with strong spatiotemporal heterogeneity. The warming effect is consistent with the recent observed strong warming in 2023 and expected to make the 2020 s anomalously warm.

The forcing is equivalent in magnitude to 80% of the measured increase in planetary heat uptake since 2020. The radiative forcing also has strong hemispheric contrast, which has important implications for precipitation pattern changes.

From the abstract of the open access päper linked above.

[gerontocrat]

SSTs from https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/ as at 29th May (1 of 2)

World SSTs and North Atlantic SSTs still at record highs.
However, there is a big difference in the extent to which SSTs exceed the 1982-2011 mean. North Atlantic SSTs are currently about 1.25 degrees C above that mean, World SSTs 0.7 C.

also see next post.......

[gerontocrat]

SSTs from https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/ as at 29th May (2 of 2)

There is still a big argument going on about the effect of the 2020 change to fuel used by shipping and the consequent 80% reduction in aerosol emissions, - see article below

But as yet I have not seen a mention of that SSTs in the N Atlantic appear to have been rising faster than World SSTs for over 40 years as can be seen in the yearly averages to 2023, (see 1st graph attached).

The 2nd graph showing each years average SSTs to 29th May shows that so far 2024 N Atlantic SSTs are currently heading for an even more extreme rise. But who knows what the switch to ENSO neutral and then La Nina will bring.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/30/termination-shock-cut-in-ship-pollution-sparked-global-heating-spurt

‘Termination shock’: cut in ship pollution sparked global heating spurt

Sudden cut in pollution in 2020 meant less shade from sun and was ‘substantial’ factor in record surface temperatures in 2023, study finds

The slashing of pollution from shipping in 2020 led to a big “termination shock” that is estimated have pushed the rate of global heating to double the long-term average, according to research.

Until 2020, global shipping used dirty, high-sulphur fuels that produced air pollution. The pollution particles blocked sunlight and helped form more clouds, thereby curbing global heating. But new regulations at the start of 2020 slashed the sulphur content of fuels by more than 80%.

The new analysis calculates that the subsequent drop in pollution particles has significantly increased the amount of heat being trapped at the Earth’s surface that drives the climate crisis. The researchers said the sharp ending of decades of shipping pollution was an inadvertent geoengineering experiment, revealing new information about its effectiveness and risks.

High ocean surface temperatures smashed records in 2023, alarming experts who have struggled to explain the huge rises. But scientists have mixed views on the role played by the cut in shipping pollution.

Those behind the new study say it could be a “pretty substantial” factor. Others say it is only a small factor, and that the reasons for the extraordinary rises in sea and global temperatures remain an alarming mystery.

Dr Tianle Yuan, at the University of Maryland, US, who led the study, said the estimated 0.2 watts per sq metre of additional heat trapped over the oceans after the pollution cut was “a big number, and it happened in one year, so it’s a big shock to the system”.

“We will experience about double the warming rate compared to the long-term average” since 1880 as a result, he said. The heating effect of the pollution cut is expected to last about seven years.

The research, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, combined satellite observations of sulphur pollution and computer modelling to calculate the impact of the cut. It found the short-term shock was equivalent to 80% of the total extra heating the planet has seen since 2020 from longer-term factors such as rising fossil-fuel emissions.

The scientists used relatively simple climate models to estimate how much this would drive up average global temperatures at the surface of the Earth, finding a rise of about 0.16C over seven years. This is a large rise and the same margin by which 2023 beat the temperature record compared with the previous hottest year.

However, other scientists think the temperature impact of the pollution cut will be significantly lower due to feedbacks in the climate system, which are included in the most sophisticated climate models. The results of this type of analysis are expected later in 2024.

“[Pollution particles] are one of the largest uncertainties in the climate system, and pretty hard to measure,” said Dr Zeke Hausfather, at analysts Carbon Brief. He said the new analysis did a good job of using satellite data to estimate the change in trapped heat after the pollution cut, but he disagreed on how that translated into a temperature rise. Hausfather’s estimate of the temperature rise due to the pollution cut was 0.05C over 30 years.

“The [pollution cut] is certainly a contributing factor to the recent warmth, but it only goes a small way toward explaining the 0.3C, 0.4C, and 0.5C margins of monthly records set in the second half of 2023,” he said.

Dr Gavin Schmidt, at Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said the new research was “definitely a positive contribution, but it’s not using a fully coupled climate model, so there is still more work to be done. We’ll see how this all gets reconciled over the coming months.”

In March, Schmidt warned: “We need answers for why 2023 turned out to be the warmest year in possibly the past 100,000 years. And we need them quickly.” He said the recent El Niño event and a rise in solar activity were not sufficient explanations.

Deliberately pumping aerosols into the air over the oceans to stimulate more cloud cover has been proposed as a way of cooling the Earth. Yuan said years of shipping pollution followed by a sharp cut was an accidental large-scale experiment: “We did inadvertent geoengineering for 50 or 100 years over the ocean.”

The new analysis indicates that this type of geoengineering would reduce temperatures, but would also bring serious risks. These include the sharp temperature rise when the pumping of aerosols stopped – the termination shock – and also potential changes to global precipitation patterns, which could disrupt the monsoon rains that billions of people depend on.

“We should definitely do research on this, because it’s a tool for situations where we really want to cool down the Earth temporarily,” like an emergency brake, he said. “But this is not going to be a long-term solution, because it doesn’t address the root cause of global warming,” which is emissions from fossil fuel burning.

[kiwichick16]

almost at the point where temps level off at the start of the northern summer  .....still ahead of last year....

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/

[Freegrass]

Scary gif…
This is just one year difference. 

But where did all the heat in the northern North Atlantic go?
Is the cold blob back?

[Renerpho]

But where did all the heat in the northern North Atlantic go?

Further north and to the east? SST anomalies are way higher around Scandinavia now than they were a year ago.

By the way, what's happening in the northern Pacific is crazy.

[kiwichick16]

@  Ren ......as you say Scandinavia   .....and the  Gulf of Finland  in particular

[Niall Dollard]

@  Ren ......as you say Scandinavia   .....and the  Gulf of Finland  in particular

From Mika Rantenen

"While the last ice floes have just melted off the end of the Bothnian Bay, the daily mean sea surface temperature at the Gulf of Finland wavebuoy reached 19.5 °C.

That's ten degrees (!) above the median for 2002-2023. "

[Niall Dollard]

By the way, what's happening in the northern Pacific is crazy.

They are very high.

I suspect it might be the Kuro Siwo/Kuroshio extending. Which would be bad news for western America down the line.

There is a discussion on the Kuroshio extension in this paper :

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-01010-1

[morganism]

An unusual Ocean anomaly grows in the North Pacific. How does it form, and what does it mean for the weather seasons ahead?

Categories Long range / seasonal forecast   

(don't know if this is the RRRidge coming back, And some folk are saying La Nina dropping out before summer ends)

A strong oceanic anomaly is forming in the North Pacific, connecting into the global weather system. These strong anomalies can impact regional weather and marine ecosystems and will also impact seasonal weather from Autumn and into Winter 2024/2025.

Ocean anomalies are usually the result of pressure and weather changes. However, larger areas of unusual ocean temperatures can also be a sign of large-scale changes, which can have significance for future weather and even whole weather seasons.

We will look at the latest anomalies developing in the North Pacific, how they form, and what they can tell us about the weather for the upcoming weather seasons, especially Winter 2024/2025.
(more)

https://www.severe-weather.eu/long-range-2/unusual-anomaly-pacific-ocean-winter-2024-2025-impact-united-states-canada-weather-fa/