The next time you hear someone in Missouri talk about how our summer has been pretty pleasant, climate change and global warming must be a hoax, remind them that the world is a whole lot bigger than Missouri.  In fact, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released data last week showing that the world’s ocean surface temperature was the warmest for any August on record (since 1880), and ocean temps for the June-August season were also the warmest for which NOAA has data. 

This comes after record ocean temperatures for July, as noted by the Associated Press:

Breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land, because water takes longer to heat up and does not cool off as easily as land.

“This warm water we’re seeing doesn’t just disappear next year; it’ll be around for a long time,” said climate scientist Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in British Columbia. It takes five times more energy to warm water than land.

The warmer water “affects weather on the land,” Prof. Weaver said. “This is another yet really important indicator of the change that’s occurring.”

With last week's data, NOAA also published this video illustrating the trend:

More at Climate Progress.