Ocean acidification
How much surface-ocean pH changed from the late 1980s to the early 2020s. A carbonate-chemistry trend, not temperature and not a pollution map.
Read the card →Sea surface temperature
Sea-surface temperature (SST) is the temperature of the upper ocean: from a fraction of a millimetre to a few metres, depending on the sensor. It helps set evaporation, storms, marine heatwaves, and the exchange of heat and carbon with the air.
The standing pattern is warm tropics and cold polar seas, with western-boundary currents (Gulf Stream, Kuroshio) as warm filaments. Year-to-year change is easier to read as an anomaly: the departure from a long-term climatology: than on the absolute equator-pole rainbow.
The maps are NASA GHRSST MUR, a blended satellite SST analysis for 1 July, 2003-2025. Anomaly years on this page run 2020-2024.
NASA GHRSST MUR L4, 1 July. Absolute SST is the equator-pole field; anomaly is departure from MUR climatology.
Absolute SST, 1 July 2025
Latest 1 July absolute map on this page. Other days: NASA Worldview, the live MUR explorer.
On absolute maps: red and orange are warm, purple is cold, land is black. Compare basins and western-boundary currents, not a single pixel. On anomaly maps: reds are warmer than the MUR climatology, blues cooler. A red equatorial Pacific is often El Niño.
Each plate is 1 July in a daily analysis, so years can be compared. Cloud gaps are filled by the MUR blend. Anomaly snapshots before 2020 are not on this page.
Source
NASA Worldview / GIBS; GHRSST L4 MUR Sea Surface Temperature
Vintage: 1 July 2025
https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/
License:
Public domain (NASA)
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