The figure below shows two of
the major sea surface temperature records: HadSST3 from the Hadley Center, and NCDC's ERSST series.
Not exact matches
The warmth was due to the near -
record strong El Niño that developed during the Northern Hemisphere spring in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific Ocean and to large regions of
record warm and much warmer - than - average
sea surface temperatures in parts of every
major ocean basin.
Because hurricane caused flooding was more prevalent during the Little Ice Age when Atlantic
temperatures averaged 1 to 2 degrees F colder than today researchers concluded, «The frequent occurrence of
major hurricanes in the western Long Island
record suggests that other climate phenomena, such as atmospheric circulation, may have been favorable for intense hurricane development despite lower
sea surface temperatures.»
His rebuttal shows that NOAA's news land
surface record is similar to that of other
major climate datasets, and that a new paper (on which he was lead co-author) confirms its
sea surface data — «Assessing recent warming using instrumentally homogeneous
sea surface temperature records» in Science Advances, January 2017.