ICES Report on Ocean Climate 2018

Long time-series on ocean properties are rare for the surface ocean and even more uncommon for the deep ocean. The North Atlantic region is unique in having a relatively large number of locations where oceanographic data have been collected repeatedly for multiple years or decades; the longest records extend back more than a century. The ICES report on ocean Climate combines decades of ocean observations across the North Atlantic ICES region to describe the current status of sea temperature and salinity, and atmospheric conditions, as well as observed trends and recent variability.

The report provides information from the longest time-series into an overview of changes across the ICES Area, with short regional summaries on the variability of North Atlantic upper, inter-mediate and deep waters.

Although the focus of the report is on temperature and salinity measurements, additional complementary datasets are included through-out the report, such as sea level pressure, air temperature, and ice cover.