alt.hn

4/9/2026 at 12:25:57 PM

Show HN: 41 years sea surface temperature anomalies

 https://ssta.willhelps.org

by willmeyers

4/9/2026 at 1:45:09 PM

Along these lines: I really like the 'Climate Reanalyzer' project by the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine [1]. There's so much good stuff there if you click around a bit; you can create custom plots for the surface temperature of different regions for example[2], which quickly shows you that Western Europe has actually warmed a lot more than the global average, and we're closer to +2°C already in that region.

[1]: https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/?dm_id=world2 [2]: https://climatereanalyzer.org/research_tools/monthly_tseries...

by mckirk

4/9/2026 at 2:09:37 PM

https://climatereanalyzer.org/research_tools/monthly_tseries...

What changed in 1979?

by engineer_22

4/9/2026 at 3:46:10 PM

Probably just an El Nino / La Nina oscillation. Looks similar to the changes leading up to 1998 (another big El Nino), 2016 (same), and 2024.

More glibly: "the temperature"

by Windchaser

4/10/2026 at 12:34:42 PM

Haha, actually the long term trend changed abruptly

by engineer_22

4/9/2026 at 2:45:58 PM

I don't know but it cooencideds with the start of satellite monitoring.

Half a century of satellite remote sensing of sea-surface temperature (2019) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003442571...

I haven't looked but there will probably be references somewhere explaining the dat sources.

by interloxia

4/11/2026 at 7:10:13 PM

This March (2026) in Norway was nearly 4 K warmer than the preceding thirty year average for March, and 0.6 K warmer than the previous record set about 10 years ago.

So I could easily believe that we are already at +2 K for the year as whole.

by ninalanyon

4/9/2026 at 2:53:17 PM

> https://climatereanalyzer.org/research_tools/monthly_tseries...

It can also be clearly seen that the 2020 limit on the sulphur content in the fuel oil used on board ships [1] had quite the negative effects when it comes to surface sea temperatures, but I haven't that many climate (and not only) scientists taking responsibility of that act (even though related warnings had been made, I remember reading one just before the measure went in effect).

[1] https://www.imo.org/en/mediacentre/hottopics/pages/sulphur-2...

by paganel

4/9/2026 at 7:17:50 PM

Cutting sulphur content wasn't about climate. Why would climate scientists be taking responsibility?

Blasting pollution into the air is generally a bad idea. If it becomes necessary in order to fight warming, it should be done deliberately and with due consideration, not by having a bunch of ships burning dirty fuel.

by wat10000

4/10/2026 at 8:38:47 AM

So, who decides what? What's worst? Dirtier air or a hotter climate? Who makes those decisions? On what considerations?

by paganel

4/10/2026 at 12:56:30 PM

Those questions sum up one of the great problems of our time.

by wat10000

4/9/2026 at 5:57:26 PM

What should they say? “Turns out there’s a side effect we should put the sulfur back in diesel”?

by nielsbot

4/10/2026 at 8:37:44 AM

Something like: What we scientifically thought was going to improve things has made them worst.

by paganel

4/10/2026 at 7:40:41 PM

It didn't make them worse. It solved one problem. That made the extent of the other existing problem more apparent.

That was known and expected. We could not continue to put sulfur in the air; it causes acid rain.

The fact that we also cannot afford to put CO2 into the air is a separate problem. That goes beyond temperature: even if additional sulfur would mitigate the temperature increase, it would also make ocean acidification worse.

by jfengel

4/10/2026 at 9:34:17 AM

Scientists are saying that tho. We’re talking about those findings rn. Not sure what point you’re trying to make. Scientists don’t own their mistakes?

by nielsbot

4/9/2026 at 3:33:39 PM

"those three ants there ruined my picnic" ?

by mistrial9

4/9/2026 at 1:48:28 PM

In general I think the sea warms slower than land, so you'd expect land everywhere to warm faster than the global average.

by Scarblac

4/9/2026 at 3:02:10 PM

In case you wonder how the anomaly is calculated:

   The daily global 5km SSTA product requires a daily climatology to calculate the daily SST anomalies. Daily climatologies (DC) are derived from the monthly mean (MM) climatology via linear interpolation. To achieve this, we assigned the MM value to the 15th day of each corresponding month, with the individual days between these dates being derived using linear interpolation.

   We then calculate the SSTA product using: SST_anomaly = SST - DC where the SST is the value for the day in question, and DC is the corresponding daily climatology for that day of the year.

by croemer

4/9/2026 at 3:13:44 PM

This doesn't give me a clear idea as a layman on how to interpret this information. Is it ok for the layman to believe that may 1st 1985 the variations of -5 to 5 were around 86 mean but in 2025 the same were around 82 mean, if that were to be the case, irrespective of the variations, it would not give me an idea of whether its concerning or not (this is just a random example, don't read too much into my beliefs)

by marginalx

4/9/2026 at 2:25:32 PM

This looks cool but it's missing a clear legend on the default view to help the viewer understand what they're looking at.

It's not immediately clear if it's just absolute temperatures or relative temperatures or what. You have to look at the color scale to notice that it's from -5 to +5. But relative to what? Over what timescale? Is it a moving average?

I guess I could dig into the data link to figure it out but most people aren't going to do that.

by pimlottc

4/9/2026 at 1:20:27 PM

Very emotionally powerful to watch something play out, even if I'm already consciously aware of it. Would love a speed where I can watch the whole dataset play out in about 1 minute.

by zug_zug

4/9/2026 at 1:36:13 PM

What are we seeing play out? It just looks like some areas are warm and some are cold?

by jstanley

4/9/2026 at 1:50:14 PM

I can't believe there are still so-called intellegent people coming out with this crap.

1985 sure. Maybe 2000

But now?

by iso1631

4/9/2026 at 2:02:54 PM

I'll give you 2 reasons.

a) published data tends to see corrections from sensors and methodology which take several years to work out the fine details. (This isn't an attack this is science) Which means always take yesterday's numbers with more scepticism than 2yr ago. (This is making no statement of any data you're looking at or any trend you claim to see)

b) a field dominated by modelling needs data to back it up, otherwise the conversation would be, "Why is the LHC failing to find strong theory which is absolutely there" vs "I wonder if the modelling is correct based on..." This is a certain level of maturity that certain sciences are only starting to reach after playing in the ballpark of "let's go model my idea and make a press release which will just so happen to help my funding".

Yes sea level temps are rising, absolute numbers are still difficult to come by though and last UN summary doc I read still put things at 5C global average over a century. (Yes still horrifically catastrophic for the wrong people, but I'm also not in charge)

by rob_c

4/9/2026 at 2:20:21 PM

I doubt it has anything to do with data-quality, I'd be surprised if even 10% of climate denialists have studied the numbers. Remember >20% of US citizens are still creationists, a lot of people aren't emotionally ready to believe scary things, and maybe they never will be.

by zug_zug

4/9/2026 at 3:16:43 PM

I take it you have data against creationism?

Or that it is somehow less “scary”?

by vscode-rest

4/9/2026 at 3:52:11 PM

Indeed, there is quite a lot of data against (Biblical/young-earth) creationism.

Everything from "humans' chromosome 2 is a fusion of two other chromosomes, and we see those two other chromosomes still present in chimpanzees and gorillas and bonobos", which argues for common descent, to "when zircon crystals form, they accept radioactive uranium but violently reject the lead that it decays to, and modern zircon crystals have lead-uranium ratios indicating that they formed billions of years ago", arguing for an old age of the universe. And many, many, many, many other pieces of evidence.

by Windchaser

4/9/2026 at 4:05:59 PM

Chromosomal similarity argues for solid engineering principles just as much as it does common decent. Do you have any data to suggest that the almighty did not take a working chromosome 2 (made in their own image, perhaps), and reuse it in these other animals you reference?

by vscode-rest

4/9/2026 at 4:38:48 PM

Nothing about the human body argues for solid engineering principles.

by saalweachter

4/9/2026 at 7:08:53 PM

Presumably you have some data to back that up? A product designed by the worlds top biological engineers that is more effective?

by vscode-rest

4/9/2026 at 7:53:27 PM

> Do you have any data to suggest that the almighty did not take a working chromosome 2 (made in their own image, perhaps), and reuse it in these other animals you reference?

Why would an almighty god leave markers in our Chromosome 2 that look like they are from chromosomes 2a/2b in other apes?

It's not just that there's a huge genetic similarities between the chromosomes. Which there are! Chromosome 2 also has an extra, deactivated centromere, which was used in the copying of the previous chromosome 2b, before the fusion. And, remember that chromosomes typically have telomeres at their ends to keep them from fraying apart. In a fusion event you'd expect some telomeres from the end of the ingredient chromosomes to end up in the middle of the resulting fused chromosome. And this is what we see.

Of course God could have created our chromosome in such a way that it looks very much like the fusion of 2 chromosomes from our shared ancestor with chimpanzees, down to the addition of an extra centromere and telomere region. But why would he?

But, I've also got to say, man, please don't be surprised if I don't respond much. I have no offense intended towards you, but from my perspective, arguing with a young earth creationist is about as productive as arguing with a flat earther. There are about 6 orders of magnitude of difference in age between an Earth that's about 6k years old and 4 billion, and those differences should be readily apparent all over the natural world. And they are! We see an incredible wealth of evidence for an old universe.

But... well, horse and water and all that. I can't expect to change your mind any more than I'd expect to change a flat-earther's mind.

by Windchaser

4/9/2026 at 9:00:49 PM

I get that you don’t understand why a creator might do things they way they might have done. I don’t either. But surely you admit your own lack of understanding is not a scientific proof point?

If I said “I don’t understand why the big bang happened”, would that be evidence it didn’t?

by vscode-rest

4/10/2026 at 3:07:16 PM

Are you familiar with the idea of Last Thursdayism?

by Windchaser

4/10/2026 at 4:49:37 PM

Certainly.

Which is why I contest anyone who makes claims like “smart people like me know that Science says the earth is N years old and everyone who disagrees is too dumb to understand these indisputable facts”.

by vscode-rest

4/9/2026 at 7:19:21 PM

There's a buttload of data against creationism. There are living trees older than the typical date given for the creation.

by wat10000

4/9/2026 at 8:58:21 PM

Oldest tree I see is reported as 5,000 years. Common creation date is held to be roughly 6000 years ago.

Not that I think the age estimates folks have has much basis is reality. But this is a particularly empty nothing-burger.

by vscode-rest

4/9/2026 at 9:21:41 PM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_trees

I’m sure you’ll say the older ones are wrong, of course.

by wat10000

4/9/2026 at 9:38:38 PM

https://www.conservation.org/news/methuselah-still-the-world...

Why do these disagree? Are the metrics perhaps under some debate, even amongst the Scientists?

by vscode-rest

4/9/2026 at 9:44:24 PM

That one isn’t counting clonal trees.

by wat10000

4/10/2026 at 12:11:11 AM

Ok. Not really sure what you’re getting at here tbh. But I assume you have read some paper that said that this tree had some isotope of some material, and you’ve taken that to mean the earth is older than 6,000 years?

by vscode-rest

4/10/2026 at 12:13:22 AM

There are trees much older than 6,000 years, I provided a link with details, and you don’t know what I’m getting at?

by wat10000

4/10/2026 at 12:14:03 AM

No, you have data that you’ve interpreted to mean that the trees are older than 6,000 years old. What is that data, and why have you interpreted it in that way?

by vscode-rest

4/10/2026 at 12:53:56 AM

The cool thing about Wikipedia is that the bottom of every article has a bunch of references.

by wat10000

4/10/2026 at 12:58:47 AM

So you don’t know. But you have faith someone did their homework.

Me too!

by vscode-rest

4/10/2026 at 1:12:42 AM

It's not faith when a bunch of different people all did the homework and came up with the same answers. Especially when they're all part of a system that rewards new discoveries, and they did the homework in very different ways.

There are mountains (both literal and metaphorical) of evidence for an old earth. The only evidence for a young earth is a book which contradicts its own creation story in the first two chapters.

by wat10000

4/10/2026 at 1:26:56 AM

[dead]

by vscode-rest

4/9/2026 at 2:31:46 PM

And believing the world ending as in "the day after tomorrow" was the "still mask wearing" of the 2010s. Fear.

by rob_c

4/9/2026 at 3:56:58 PM

Jesus Christ, dude. That was a disaster movie by the same guy that brought us Independence Day and 2012, based on a book by a radio host best known for possibly facilitating the Heaven's Gate mass suicide by feeding rumors a UFO was following the Hale-Bopp comet, and a writer who has peddled personal tales of alien abductions for 40 years. Not exactly a reliable central tendency measure of what real people feared.

This has to be one of the stupidest false equivalences I've ever seen.

by nonameiguess

4/9/2026 at 3:06:02 PM

Feels like a really weak bad-faith take.

I guess you're trying to draw a false-equivalency between taking a problem extra seriously and denying/perpetuating it? However taking a problem too seriously doesn't harm people, if you want to wear a mask out of an abundance of caution you won't kill anybody else.

Also nobody believed the world was going to end in two days, that feels like a disingenuous talking point. If somebody literally believed the world would end in < 10 years they'd likely quit their job, spend all their savings, etc.

If your point is that you've met ~15 individuals in your life who were obnoxious/self-righteous/unlikeable about their attempts to make the world better -- congrats every movement has that. But it can't distract from the fact that one thing is true and the other is false, and anybody who tries to focus more on the stereotypes of the individuals in a movement than whether it's true or not is only creating noise.

by zug_zug

4/9/2026 at 3:19:42 PM

No I'm talking about proper healthy science not blind trust. Please don't confuse discussion with argument it's disingenuous and best I can say is look inwards.

by rob_c

4/9/2026 at 2:28:07 PM

No, most of these people consciously or otherwise, just want/need to be contrarians. Look at flat Earthers. There is no way any sane person would say the earth is flat.

by HumblyTossed

4/9/2026 at 3:15:47 PM

Please don't bring up another thing started by idiot scientists for a laugh to laugh at stupid people. You have no idea what it's like dealing with the "just open your eyes" and "what else are they hiding" tier of pseudo-intellectualism enabled by nu-media.

There are reasons to be sceptical which are set in reason and it's worth not throwing that out with the bath water. Even if the bath water is full of low iq bitchute comments...

by rob_c

4/10/2026 at 3:18:33 AM

I think you may be reading more into my comment than I wrote. I was only talking about what we are seeing in the Show HN. I have no baseline to compare it to so all I can see is a map of the oceans with some areas red and some areas blue.

by jstanley

4/10/2026 at 8:52:09 AM

And over time the volume of blue reduces and changes to red, and even deeper red appears

It's generally accepted that red = hot and blue = cold, and there is a scale showing that anyway

It's quite obvious based solely on the site that this shows surface sea temperatures over 40 years, and it's far higher now than it was 40 years ago

But sure, just go on the "I'm only asking questions" crap.

by iso1631

4/9/2026 at 1:59:24 PM

[flagged]

by Johnny_Bonk

4/9/2026 at 1:56:08 PM

If you tap the images on mobile, there is an animation.

by drc500free

4/9/2026 at 2:56:24 PM

[dead]

by rexpop

4/9/2026 at 2:01:49 PM

This is all terrifying data.

by ferfumarma

4/9/2026 at 2:17:55 PM

Made worse that there's a significant number of people who refuse to believe it, and for all the wrong reasons at that.

by pstuart

4/9/2026 at 2:39:43 PM

Global warming doesn't exist.

If it does, it's not that bad.

If it gets bad, it's not a big deal in reality.

If it becomes a big deal, it was not humanity's fault.

And if it was humanity's fault, at least the planet was saved from a global dictatorship run by scientists.

by lp4v4n

4/9/2026 at 7:21:58 PM

You're missing: it's real and we did it but it's good, and, it's real and we did it and it's bad but it would cost too much to fix it now.

by wat10000

4/9/2026 at 2:49:09 PM

[dead]

by rozal

4/9/2026 at 1:55:44 PM

For those interested in this type of climate data visualization apps, I have worked on this one in the past, which is actively maintained with a lot of love, and very nice:

https://portraits.ouranos.ca/en

by cjauvin

4/9/2026 at 3:09:15 PM

I don't quite understand the temperature color scale of -5 to 5, what is the baseline here on -5 to 5, is it relative to global average of that day? Or a period of time?

by marginalx

4/9/2026 at 1:56:38 PM

Very nice. I had a quick look at the data source and I wonder if the more recent data is more sensitive/better quality since 2020? There's a clear trend of the oceans getting warmer but recently it seems like there's more and more heat retained.

"CRW's first-generation global monitoring products were operational at NOAA until April 30, 2020, when they were officially retired, and succeeded by CRW's next-generation operational daily monitoring products."

by illwrks

4/9/2026 at 1:54:51 PM

Serious question. Why are there static (in absolute positional terms) anomalies in the data that seem to be recording at the other end of the spectrum to their immediate surrounding waters?

Also nice to see several shipping lanes crop up when watching it.

by rob_c

4/9/2026 at 12:58:02 PM

Awesome! Maybe there could be even larger speeds and timesteps.

by Gravityloss

4/9/2026 at 1:52:39 PM

This was my first thought. I'd like to see it running at like 10x or more to better grasp the change over time

by mcluck

4/9/2026 at 6:11:59 PM

This is great, thank you for posting this!

by kittikitti

4/9/2026 at 2:59:06 PM

I jumped to my birth date and found it's much colder than today.

by adcent

4/9/2026 at 1:14:02 PM

More of this!

by imagetic

4/9/2026 at 3:05:21 PM

[dead]

by fedorsapronov

4/9/2026 at 4:53:15 PM

[dead]

by simonebrunozzi

4/9/2026 at 4:29:45 PM

[dead]

by mc-serious