Much the same story as June. Much of Canada and the US was cooler than normal, but they are clearly the minority:
(from NCDC, which is part of NOAA)
It was the fifth warmest July on record.
The ocean temperatures, quite notably, were the warmest on record.
One month like this doesn’t prove a long-term warming trend. But when it happens month after month, we can be more and more sure that this isn’t just internal variability.
ClimateSight 
The oceans are the warmest on record? Considering how the oceans hold so much more heat than the atmosphere, that’s really something.
Keep in mind that an El Niño has just started, which makes the ocean warmer. And it’s only the warmest July on record – not necessarily the warmest of any month on record.
This is SSTs, not overall heat content.
Is anyone else unable to see the map? It worked when I first posted it but now it just has a red X in the corner, and is the same way on the NCDC link.
I see the map OK.
It would be great if some of these maps and graphs were published as widgets that could be incorporated into pages and were always displayed the latest data.
It would be very cool. Ask NCDC, or maybe even someone who knows how to program widgets.
Just curious, how can ocean temps be warmer when TSI has been lower than normal for the last couple years? Oceans are heated by the Sun, even if TSI remained the same, the oceans should not have gotten warmer.
The simple answer might be CO2 is trapping more heat, however, Thermodynamics does not support the Greenhouse Effect being stronger than Convection. Any energy “trapped” by the GHE would be easily transfered to the Tropopause by Convection. This is not hard to show using transfer of energy formulas for Conduction, Covnection, and Radiation.
Radiation, by far, transfers the least amount of energy when compared to Conduction and Convection at the same temps. It is kind of like placing one end of a U-shaped tube in a river and pointing it upstream, you have not signifigantly increased the volume upstream with the Tube being the GHE and the River being Convection.
We know that heat transfer rates increase with temp so even if “trapped” Radiation were to increase the surface temp, the rate of cooling would increase and Convection would be the primary means of energy transfer. This is a “negative feedback” that I have not seen mentioned in any models.
Just looking for answers, not an argument and I am happy to clear up any questions or comments as well.
Thanks,
Steve
…..I’ll let someone else answer your question! Tamino? Brian? :)
I’m not an expert on climate modelling at all. You’d have to direct your question to one of the experts, such as those at RealClimate.
My suspicion (pure speculation, mind you) is that convection isn’t adding energy to the system, while radiation is. Climate fundamentally comes down to [energy in] – [energy out].