January 2021 is favored to be wetter and warmer than average for much of the country.
The large, warm pool of ocean water in the Indian and west Pacific Oceans has been growing warmer and expanding in size since 1900, impacting the Madden Julian Oscillation and regional rainfall.
Ice cover on the Great Lakes has been decreasing since the 1970s, affecting everything from fishing to shipping.
For New Englanders, the saying “as American as apple pie” may as well be “as New England as lobster.” But warming sea surface temperatures from climate change are forcing populations of the American lobster to higher latitudes than ever before—and upending fishing communities on the New England coast.
For Malaysia and Thailand, monsoon plus MJO equals disaster
January 29, 2015
The globally averaged sea surface temperature in 2013 was among the 10 highest on record, with the North Pacific reaching an historic high temperature. ENSO-neutral conditions and a negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation pattern had the largest impacts on global sea surface temperature in 2013.
Upper ocean heat content has increased significantly over the past two decades. An estimated 70 percent of the excess heat has accumulated in the top 2,000 feet of the ocean, and the rest has flowed into deeper ocean layers.
The most likely explanation for the lack of significant warming at the Earth’s surface in the past decade or so is that natural climate cycles caused shifts in ocean circulation patterns that moved some excess heat into the deep ocean.
Sea surface temperature—the average temperature of water at the surface of the global ocean—is a key indicator of the ocean's status.