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Comment by bun_terminator | Hacker News Reader

That's a somewhat misleading way to say they're higher than the year before. This makes it sound like every day has not only been higher than the year before, but was also a new all-time high. That is not the case.

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From the graph of the data, every day for the past 365 days has indeed been an all time high, higher than any previously recorded temperature recorded by the same method since records began in 1979. So does not appear to be misleading.

I don't think that's correct? The current values for example are lower than those from february

I see what you're saying. You're reading it as "every day is hotter than the previous day". The way I said it is open to misinterpretation but the article is better. It says "record-breaking year of heat" and "broken temperature records every single day over the past year," the record being the highest sea temperature for that day. Every day is an all time high for that day. The oceans are seasonally affected, so not constant temperature even averaged across the globe.

This is ignoring seasonality, of course Winter temperature can not be as high as summer temperatures but still break historic records (just as an example)

This is somehow a given when talking about seasonal data.

exactly - that's why actual record breaks every single day would be such a huge story!

But this is pretty benign - it's almost expected that a warmer year would be warmer at every point in time.

It's expected that a warmer year would be warmer at the majority of points in time. Variance should normally result in there being both warmer and colder points. To be warmer at every point in time, the year needs to be significantly warmer.

Is that not what the daily average sea surface temperature graph is showing? The 2024 line is above all the others, as is the 2023 line from May 8 onwards.

Edit: nvm, I see you are interpreting it as record breaking compared to all previous days, not just the same date in the previous calendar year.

Every day in the last year has been an all time high for that date, by quite a margin.

for that date yes, but not overall - which is I think what could be expected from the way it's being phrased

> This makes it sound like every day has not only been higher than the year before, but was also a new all-time high.

I do not believe a reasonable reader would begin with that assumption or arrive at that conclusion.

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