Just-released world ocean temperatures were the warmest ever recorded for the month of August, and the summer — June through August — also showed the warmest average ocean temperatures on record for that period, the latest monthly climate snapshot by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows.

The preliminary results are based on records stretching back to 1880.

The data, produced by the agency’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, shows one more record: the second warmest August ever recorded when ocean and land surface temperatures are combined. The warmest August was in 1998.

El Niño, a periodic warming in the tropical Pacific, is probably a factor, said Kelly T. Redmond, a regional climatologist at the Desert Research Institute in Nevada.

“When we have an El Niño, it does help warm ocean temperatures,” he said. “But it can’t do it all by itself — unless it’s a really big El Niño, which this isn’t, yet.”

Much of the ocean’s temperature patterns are a mystery, he said. “Why we have different warm areas and cold areas in our oceans is not terribly well understood.”

The June-August worldwide ocean surface temperature was 62.5 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.04 degrees above the 20th century average of 61.5.

Global ocean surface temperatures averaged 62.4 degrees, the warmest recorded for any August and 1.03 degrees above the 20th century average of 61.4.

On land, there were large areas of warmer-than-average temperatures in Australia, Europe, parts of the Middle East, northwest Africa, and southern South America.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center, meanwhile, recorded an Arctic sea ice expanse of an average 2.42 square miles in August, 18.4 percent smaller than then 1979-2000 average and consistent with a general decline of August sea ice extent since 1979.

Antarctic sea ice, however, was 2.7 percent above the 1999-2000 average. That is also consistent with a trend toward “modest” sea ice increases in Antarctica in recent decades.

The monthly reports cover too short a time-frame to be used for making broad conclusions about global climate trends over decades. Ocean temperatures, however, are an important part of the global climate picture.

“We are watching the oceans because they are big sinks of heat,” Redmond said. “It takes a lot of heat to heat up water, just like a pan on your stove — though this is a really big pan. The oceans are one place some of the heating is going, but it may not be all at the surface; it may be deeper down, where we don’t see it so readily.”

(Graphic courtesy NOAA.)

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