Indicator: Sea Surface Temperature

More than 90% of the excess heat associated with  warming that has happened on Earth over the past 50 years has been transferred to the ocean. This sea surface temperature data was obtained from high-resolution satellite images. The chart shows the change in the timeframe from September 2016 to August 2020 when compared to temperatures recorded earlier in the timeframe of September 2013 to August 2016. The limited historical range of this chart is due to the fact that this type of high-resolution data has only been available since April 2013, so we don’t have the information needed to make comparisons to earlier decades.

Source: Asia-Pacific Data-Research Center