I have added some extra functionality to my ERA5ERA ERA stands for 'ECMWF Re-Analysis' and refers to a series of research projects at ECMWF which produced various datasets (ERA-Interim, ERA-40, etcetera). application so that I can download and access latest the ERAERA ERA stands for 'ECMWF Re-Analysis' and refers to a series of research projects at ECMWF which produced various datasets (ERA-Interim, ERA-40, etcetera). 5 daily SSTSST Sea Surface Temperatures anomalies, as well as the daily 2m temperature data. SST data starts in 1979 but there’s enough of it to draw a scatter graph and see what correlation there exists between the two if you couldn’t already guess that there would be anything other than a very strong one. As you can see from the chart above my guess was correct 😜. I’ve coloured the series red for all dates after the 1 January 2023 to highlight the surge in SST in the last year or so. I will calculate and add the correlation coefficient at a later date, or as the say in this part of the world I’ll do that directly.
I’ve added a chart of 7 and a 365 day moving averages to view the sudden explosive rise in SST over the last 12 months. I would say that most charts I see bandied about regarding this rise in SST use data that is not strictly “global”, extending as the ER5 data does from 60N to 60S. I would have thought that it might be better if the global value would be more accurate if it were calculated for all oceans, regardless of sea ice. It might not be particularly scientific but why couldn’t they use a value of zero for any grid point that had sea ice present?