Long-Term Trends in Surface Temperature over the Oceans

Abstract

Abstract A limited comparison over the Northern Hemisphere oceans has been made between sea surface temperatures obtained from “Marine lkcks,” air temperatures over the ocean obtained from the same decks, and the historical file of hydrographic data. The intercomparison of these data suggest the following conclusions. 1) The SST observations have been contaminated by a systematic conversion from bucket to injection measurements. The bias so introduced may constitute as much as 30 to 50% of the observed change in sea surface temperature since the turn of the century. 2) The same bias effects are apparent in data sets that are alleged to contain bucket measurements of sea surface temperature only. 3) The behavior of the temperature field over the ocean appears to have significant and substantial differences from the behavior of estimated temperature changes over the Northern Hemisphere land masses. It seems clear that a reliable estimate of hemispheric or global temperature cannot be made without including ...