Ocean Surface Warming Breaks Record This July – Update
July was the hottest the world’s oceans have been in almost 130 years of record-keeping.
Breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land, because water takes longer to heat up and does not cool off as easily as land.
More Evidence of Dangerous Climate Change: Ocean Surface Warming Breaks Record This July
The planet’s ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for July, breaking the previous high mark established in 1998 according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for July 2009 ranked fifth-warmest since world-wide records began in 1880.
Alert: The Rest of This Year Could Be Much Hotter
NCDC: “Based on preliminary data, the globally averaged combined land and sea surface temperature was the second warmest on record for June, and the January-June year-to-date tied with 2004 as the fifth warmest on record.” The ocean temperature was the warmest on record. In fact, it was a full 0.11°F warmer than the 2005 record. This is almost certainly the new El Niño on top of the long-term warming trend, and that means record temperatures are coming and this will be the hottest decade on record.
