This just in: Regional ocean temperatures vary. The oceans have cycles, some decadal, some millennial. The Earth's climate is vast, chaotic, and unpredictable.
So, when an organization called the American Association for the Advancement of Science does bad science, including computer modeling based on only a few decades of data, in order to induce climate panic, we shouldn't take them at face value.
Watts Up With That's Anthony Watts has the latest.
Another day, another groaner of a climate alarmist press release—this time from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), touting a new study that claims the 2023 marine heatwaves were “unprecedented” and may “signal a climate tipping point” posted at EurekAlert, July 24th, 2025.
The press release: 2023 marine heatwaves unprecedented and potentially signal a climate tipping point
The breathless tone is familiar, and the underlying logic is seriously flawed. But hey, if we scare people into action, we just might save the planet.
This is, of course, what they do. Bad methods yield bad results, but they're not after good results; they're pursuing an agenda.
The major problem with this latest breathless, panic-inducing study is, as Mr. Watts points out, its timescale.
The foundational flaw in this study is its timescale. The research relies on satellite data beginning in 1982. That gives us about 40 years of observational history, which is virtually nothing in terms of Earth’s climate system. Prior to satellite coverage, comprehensive, high-resolution global measurements of sea surface temperatures simply didn’t exist. Claims of “unprecedented” events must be framed within that very limited context. As I’ve said before, declaring a “record” based on such a short window is like calling a coin flip streak a “trend” after four tosses.
Ocean temperatures fluctuate naturally over decadal, centennial, and even millennial scales. Our current observational capacity doesn’t cover even half of one oceanic oscillation cycle, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which paleoclimatology suggests runs as long as 50-70 years. To suggest a climate “tipping point” based on this short dataset is not just premature—it’s scientifically irresponsible.
The Earth has many cycles, some of which run in millennia, some of which may run for so long that we haven't really detected them yet. But that doesn't stop the AAAS from brow-beating us with the panic cycle, which apparently runs for only hours at a time before some new panic-mongering pops up. And the oceans, which we understand even less than the lands, very likely have cycles we just don't know about.
Science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein once used the phrase "The ungrokkable vastness of ocean," and that's apt. The world's oceans are far too big, too chaotic, for us to easily understand, as is the planet's climate.
Speaking of panic-mongering, note that the AAAS study, like so many of these studies, relies not on data, but on computer models - and it's a model we've seen before.
The modeling mirage is strong with this one. Dong et al. used ECCO2 (Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean – Phase II), a high-resolution ocean model that ingests satellite data to reconstruct conditions like mixed-layer heat budgets. While ECCO2 is a valuable scientific tool, let’s not forget: models are not measurements. They are educated guesses constrained by initial assumptions and historical tuning.
Models can be useful. They can point us towards areas where we might want to gather more data. But the scientific method relies on data, facts to examine, to conclude, and to derive theoretical statements. Any model, however, that claims to represent even a fraction of the Earth's climate is fraught. This planet is just too big; its systems, climate, and otherwise run on timescales we can't easily understand. The Earth's climate is vast, chaotic, with millions, maybe billions of inputs. Any model made by humans is going to be laughably crude by comparison.
Read More: Offshore Wind Founders on the Enormous Rock of Reality
A Young Meteorologist Questioned Climate Change. The Scolds Tried to Silence Him.
And, finally, we have the geographic scale: The measurements used are local, not global.
Notice anything? These aren’t unified, global changes due to increased CO2. They are local, meteorological, and oceanographic phenomena—exactly the kinds of natural variability we should expect in a dynamic system. The fact that these local causes are acknowledged undercuts the paper’s own argument for a singular, global cause rooted in greenhouse gas emissions.
Of course, the climate scolds frequently undercut their own arguments. But too many people aren't interested in a scrupulous examination of facts. The left loves to buy into panic; if it's not climate change, it is the fact that, according to the left, you can apparently find a white supremacist under any flat rock.
The planet doesn't care about any of this, of course. It just rolls on, doing what it always has, with its own cycles and fluctuations. Through most of Earth's 4.6 billion-year history, it's been warmer than it is now, and life managed to get along just fine.
Mr. Watts makes a cogent observation:
No historical precedent is given. No paleoclimatic comparisons are offered. No quantitative thresholds are defined. It’s all speculation dressed up in technical language.
In other words, bad science.
The climate has been warming slowly since the last Ice Age ended. It will likely keep warming, slowly, for some time to come. Do humans have an effect? Yes. Is it worth disrupting our modern, technological lifestyle to address that effect? No. In simple language: There's no reason to be alarmed.
