National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
United States Department of Commerce

Oceans in NOAA’s Annual State of the Climate Report

July 16, 2015

An Argo float on the cover of the State of the Climate in 2014.

July 16, 2015

The State of the Climate in 2014 report, published in July 2015 as a Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society supplement, highlights records in sea level, ocean heat content, and sea surface temperature, also documenting ocean climate variability including the borderline El Niño, the warm-water “Blob” in the Northeast Pacific, and a transition to the warm phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The cover features a PMEL Argo float, deployed in September 2007 and still active in July 2015. PMEL scientist Gregory Johnson co-edited the Global Oceans chapter of the report, composing haiku to summarize 2014 ocean variations:                          

Not quite El Niño, North Oceans’ fluxes, warmth shift, dance with weird weather.

and longer-term changes:

Seas warm, ice caps melt, | waters rise, sour, rains shift salt, unceasing, worldwide.

Several PMEL, JISAO, and JIMAR scientists are section authors.