This month’s open thread. Please try and stay focused on substance rather than personalities. There are many real issues that are particularly salient this month, and so maybe we can collectively try not to have the comments descend into tedium.
Climate science from climate scientists...
The end of August arrives and the ERA5 reanalysis numbers at ClimatePulse are showing the August SAT anomaly will be about +0.49ºC, this up on July (+0.45ºC) and also a tad above June (+0.48ºC).
The increase over June & July is not greatly significant, unlike the dropping anomaly since the start of 2025 (Jan to May anomalies running +0.79ºC, +0.63ºC, +0.65ºC, +0.60ºC, +0.53ºC).
The ERA5 numbers provided at the Uni of Maine Climate Reanalyser show this August increase on the last two months is due to a SH wobble that appeared over the last week. The southern location is significant as it is in the NH that any big upward anomaly wobble would appear in the latter half of the year.
August 2025 thus becomes the third warmest August on record, a long way down from the “bananas!!” August anomalies of 2023 & 2024 (both +0.71ºC) and not so far above 4th spot 2016 (+0.40ºC) & 5th 2019 (+0.36ºC). (Add in a few years of AGW and this Aug 2025 anomaly is post-“bananas!!” territory, although the more sensitive months Sept-Dec are still to come.)
The less-wobbly SST anomaly (also provided by ClimatePulse) is still stuck roughly at +0.4ºC which I reckon as still a bit warmer that post-“bananas!!”.