Greater global warming revealed by satellite-derived sea-surface-temperature trends

INVESTIGATING the response of global climate to changes in external forcing is essential to our understanding of climate change. Here I present an analysis of satellite-derived sea surface temperatures for the period 1982–88. It can be seen from this analysis that the global ocean is undergoing a gradual but significant warming of ˜0.1 °C per year, whereas the trend obtained for the same period from conventional data sources (ships and buoys) is about half that magnitude 1 . Satellite global coverage, however, is far greater and, although we have no long time series of satellite data (as opposed to conventional data), it is possible to observe short-term trends, as shown here, that may not be discerned using the coarser-resolution conventional data.