Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Sea surface temperatures

(It's been awhile. Hope y'all have been behaving yourselves.)

Here's an image for you...



You're looking at NOAA's "sea surface temperature anomaly" product for last week. Does anyone else think that the warmer-than-average temperatures up by Greenland seem ominous from the perspective of the Gulf Stream? Isn't the sinking of cool water in that region one of the phenomena that drive the current?

Got my vote.

I would be cautious about making any predictions based on a week's worth of temperature *anomaly*. I don't know what the SST is normally at 50N 45W but I'm sure that it's significantly lower than that at 30N 70W and being 2degC high for week may mean nothing at all. I don't know though, I'll readily admit. For all I know you're a world-class oceanographer or climatologist. I'm certainly not.

I wouldn't make a prediction based on 5 years worth of data. But when the week's worth of data is consistent with tens-of-thousands of years worth of data ... that is quite another matter.