This chart tracks the average temperatures at the sea surface. The dataset we use is OISST v2, created by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Physical Sciences Laboratory.
OISST updates both daily and monthly (we show the monthly updates here). The dataset blends sea surface temperature observations from satellites, ships, buoys and Argo floats (small submersibles that patrol the oceans, dipping below the surface periodically to measure the deep ocean). These observations are compared using their strengths and weaknesses to fill out the Earth’s surface.
In this chart, you can choose which month of the year to focus on (or to look at the yearly average), as well as which ocean or sea to focus on. In this published version, we have observations for the major oceans, as well as the Mediterranean Sea, the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea and the global average (excluding polar regions).
We also have an additional version that also includes the global average out to 85°, as well as several climate monitoring regions used to measure phenomena like the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian Ocean Dipole.
In order to choose the ocean regions, we rely on the RECCAP2-ocean project, which uses ocean “masks” published by Fay & McKinley (2014) under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC BY 3.0). These regions are slightly different to those used by NOAA, so you may see small differences reported when comparing against other datasets.
We also use a slightly more recent “baseline” (1986-2015) than some other dataets, as this dataset begins in the early 1980s. The baseline chosen affects the actual numbers reported but not the trends you see. You can see the actual temperatures by hovering over the bars or by consulting the additional version, which has a checkbox to toggle them on.