Talk:Ocean temperature

Redirect to somewhere else
I think "ocean temperature" should not redirect to sea surface temperature as it relates also to deeper parts of the ocean. Maybe it should redirect to ocean heat content or to effects of climate change on oceans which has content on ocean temperature at greater depths? Pinging User:RCraig09 for comment. EMsmile (talk) 22:12, 18 October 2022 (UTC)


 * It seems like a good place for a disambiguation page. — RCraig09 (talk) 23:50, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Interesting idea - what would be the article that you'd put on the disambiguation page? Maybe we actually need a proper standalone article for "ocean temperature" at some point in the future. At the moment I see content about it at ocean heat content and at effects of climate change on oceans. Is there anyone else we should ping who might have an interest? EMsmile (talk) 09:38, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The "What links here" button on the Ocean temperature article lists quite a few other articles that link to "Ocean temperature". You could sample a few of them to see what meaning those other articles intended, and do the disambiguation yourself. I suspect most intend Sea surface temperature. Probably, few editors would be interested in this task, though you could ask at the Wikiproject. — RCraig09 (talk) 15:30, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I am not sure that I have understood you right - The "what links to here" only shows me these 15, how does this help me?:

* James Lovelock ‎ (links | edit) * Internet of Military Things ‎ (links | edit) * Sustainable Development Goal 14 ‎ (links | edit) For a disambiguation page, wouldn't we ideally need more than two entries? Also, I thought disambiguation pages are for words that can have several meanings, like seal (disambiguation). But Ocean temperature is by definition the temperature at any depth, versus sea surface temperature which is only at the surface. If that is so, then "ocean temperature" should either have its own article or have a redirect e.g. ocean heat content or effects of climate change on oceans, shouldn't it? Or am I approaching it the wrong way? EMsmile (talk) 19:44, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Invasive species ‎ (links | edit)
 * Sea surface temperature ‎ (links | edit)
 * 2011 Pacific hurricane season ‎ (links | edit)
 * Ivory bush coral ‎ (links | edit)
 * Hurricane Hilary (2011) ‎ (links | edit)
 * Yellowstripe scad ‎ (links | edit)
 * Sustainable Development Goals ‎ (links | edit)
 * Cyclonic Niño ‎ (links | edit)


 * Disambiguation states that disambiguation pages "may be used to disambiguate a number of similar terms". I don't see a minimum number of terms. If you think there is a problem here, you can see what those ~15 articles intend and either convert this redirect to a disambiguation page, or supplement the navigation hatnote at Sea surface temperature. Making an entire new article does not seem warranted. — RCraig09 (talk) 20:01, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * There are about 1000 links to sea surface temperature. Going through all them and checking which should actually link to ocean temperature would be a bit tedious (but is theoretically doable). Wouldn't this be the better solution: have a redirect from ocean temperature to either ocean heat content or effects of climate change on oceans. Redirecting ocean temperature to sea surface temperature (= the current situation) seems wrong. EMsmile (talk) 20:04, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Since you can't decide where to redirect to, it sounds like a 2-or-more-element disambiguation page, or an expanded hatnote at the present destination, seem the best options. I don't care which. — RCraig09 (talk) 20:24, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, I disagree. I think a redirect to Effects of climate change on oceans is the way to go. I'll set it up that way. It'll be easy to change it back later in case someone else disagrees. I'll also ask at the WikiProject Climate Change page (at some point). Not sure why you had to throw in the "Make a mountain out of a molehill again" in the edit summary - seems to be your hobby to try and belittle me. If you think this discussion is a waste of time then simply don't participate in it. I know I pinged you but nobody is forcing you to engage in discussions that you think are pointless. Try not to ruin other people's day. Have a nice day! EMsmile (talk) 22:21, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * P.S. I should have actually written about this on the talk page of sea surface temperature rather. I had forgotten that I had already participated in a discussion about this earlier here. EMsmile (talk) 22:33, 19 October 2022 (UTC)


 * So:
 * Ocean temperature is related to Sea surface temperature closely (set and subset)
 * Ocean temperature is related to Ocean heat content closely (temp ~= heat divided by volume)
 * Ocean temperature is related to Effects of climate change on oceans very indirectly (oceans being the location of only one of many effects of climate change)
 * Your new redirect chooses #3—with the least direct relation—and completely excludes #1 and #2. The closely related concepts are now hidden from readers thinking they are going to see something about Ocean temperature broadly; instead they are thrown into a narrow discussion of effects of climate change that may not even have been on the readers' minds.
 * Compare the result of this ~700-word discussion (the mountain that excludes the most relevant destinations) with what could have been achieved by a few words of disambiguation or navigation hatnotes (the molehill that you disagree with because "the current situation" you think "seems wrong"). The mountain/molehill observation is not personal; it relates to reasoning process, and why you would ping anyone to discuss at all.
 * Separately: at Sea surface temperature you've now removed the pertinent Ocean heat content hatnote. — RCraig09 (talk) 03:35, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I still stand by my decision and feel that it's a workable one (not an ideal one, but neither are the other options). Ocean temperature these days is used for the temperature at deeper depths, not at the surface. Deep ocean temperature is a synonym, is my impression at least. But I think it's better if we continue the discussion on the talk page of sea surface temperature, i.e. here. I think we have a higher chance there of getting more people to contribute. I feel we need more opinions as you and I are not in agreement on this topic. You can also see there an earlier discussion about this in May 2022. So far, nobody at the sea surface temperature talk page has complained that I modified the hatnote and lead and definition section. Let's continue over there to keep it more focused in one location. EMsmile (talk) 21:36, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
 * P.S. The original redirect from ocean temperature to sea surface temperature was made in 2011. It's quite likely that the understanding of the different terms has moved on since then. EMsmile (talk) 21:40, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
 * P.P.S. I did initially plan to redirect it to Ocean heat content but couldn't find a logical place in the ocean heat content where e.g. the content from the latest IPCC report that talks about ocean temperature could fit well. I felt it fitted well at Effects of climate change on oceans but I do envision that ultimately a stand-alone article on ocean temperature might be the way to go. Not a disambiguation page. EMsmile (talk) 21:40, 20 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Granted, this topic could be a standalone article. But it isn't.
 * Since it isn't now a standalone article, incoming links and humans searching should be able to choose the destination they are expecting. This concept is basic.
 * Climate change's effects (your change of a 2011 redirect) are not a reasonable expectation, much less the only expectation, for people searching for "ocean temperature". This fact implies that a disambiguation page is called for.
 * Some readers will want to learn about sea surface temperature, at least in part because it is sea surface temperature that is used in calculation of Global surface temperature in relation to the very topic climate change that you are personally concerned with!!! Your directing all people searching for "Ocean temperature" away from "Sea surface temperature" is simply dead wrong.
 * Though more has been learned about the oceans since 2011, the "understanding of the different " has not "moved on" as you suggest.
 * It's not for you to decide that "Ocean temperature is used for the temperature at deeper depths". Deep ocean temperature is a not a synonym for ocean temperature, period. And Wikipedia isn't governed by your "impression".
 * You have apparently not done as I have twice described: going to the WP articles that link to Ocean temperature to see the reason for linking here. In my review of the first five examples, none are limited to temperature only below the surface. None. Zero. (The ~1000 inbound links to SST are irrelevant. It's the inbound links to OT that matter here.)
 * I'm not trying to "ruin your day" but my fact- and policy-based arguments and and consideration for readers' expectations should trump your "impressions" and preference to divert all attention to climate change articles.
 * My newly-posted disambiguation page may well be supplemented or re-arranged, for example moving some links down to the /* See also */ section, as they are not literal synonyms. However, definitely, an exclusive redirect to a climate change article is dead wrong.
 * Hatnotes at SST are a separate issue and can be discussed there; they're not as fatal as your redirect here. — RCraig09 (talk) 00:24, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm putting my reply at the talk page of sea surface temperature; just trying to keep it to one place. EMsmile (talk) 09:15, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

An article needs to be written
(Just to say that previous discussions about this are here and here) Hi User:BD2412, I noticed that you put a maintenance tag on this page: "The present disambiguation page holds the title of a primary topic, and an article needs to be written about it." I agree with you. We got a bit "stuck" in our previous discussions about how to go about this, perhaps you can help solve the knot? The previous discussion is on the talk page just above this and then continued at sea surface temperature and also at the WikiProject Climate Change talk page. Or maybe we've kind of agreed already to create a stand-alone article but nobody has had the time yet to start one. Any chance you could help with guidance how we should go about creating this new article, given that content about ocean temperature (and rises therein) is scattered over to many other articles? Pinging also User:Dylnuge. EMsmile (talk) 10:48, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The ambitious editor who starts a standalone article can use the existing disambiguation topics as an initial outline. Additionally, the article should reflect that temperature is the cause of some phenomena, and an effect of other phenomena. — RCraig09 (talk) 15:47, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, we need an ambitious editor to start a new page. I've also added the "moved discussion to" template at the other two locations now. EMsmile (talk) 20:39, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It occurred to me that in the interim we could redirect "ocean temperature" to Ocean which should be the primary location for this topic. Strange that I hadn't thought of this option before. The other thing we could do is that once we have a stand-along article on "ocean temperature" we place an excerpt from it at Ocean, in the same way that it's been done for Ocean which uses an excerpt from Ocean color. EMsmile (talk) 20:39, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * And with regards to a possible structure, I was thinking of starting with a similar structure as the one at sea surface temperature. So maybe something like this:

1 Overview / definition 1.1. Sea surface temperature (this would just be a link and excerpt from sea surface temperature) 1.2 Ocean temperatures at lower than 50 m 1.3 Ocean heat content

2 Natural variations 2.1 Local variations 2.2 Regional variations

3 Interactions with other ocean processes 3.1 Stratification 3.2 Ocean oxygen levels 3.3. Photosynthesis and ocean productivity 3.4 Marine life 3.5 Ocean currents

4 Measurement 4.1 Thermometers 4.2 Weather satellites

5 Importance to the Earth's climate system 5.1 Tropical cyclones 5.2 Ocean currents / AMOC (put this here rather than in the earlier section on interactions?)

6. Trends 6.1 Recent increase due to climate change (this would just be a link and excerpt from effects of climate change on oceans) 7 Prehistoric reconstructions (perhaps something here about what the ocean temperature used to be like in earlier geological time scales)

I have "changes" as the last section but the mentioning of changes probably needs to be in all the other sections as well; so that's going to be tricky. EMsmile (talk) 20:39, 25 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Ocean may sound like a good primary destination based on the section label, but that destination is not very thorough, or balanced, or organized, or complete. Even worse, a redirect would by-pass the other topics presently linked in this disambiguation page. It's far better to leave readers' options here, until a standalone article is drafted. As a practical matter, a standalone article may not happen for months or years, if ever—this encyclopedia has endured for two decades without it. — RCraig09 (talk) 21:37, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think that a stand-alone article would be that difficult to do. It can start small and be built up over time. It doesn't need to start its life as the perfect article. So therefore, I'm pretty confident that we can have one in the not too distant future (still this year). Even a short one (with "start" quality or C) would be better than this confusing "disambiguation article" which is not a proper disambiguation article, as other editors have pointed out by now, e.g. User:BD2412. EMsmile (talk) 21:52, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I've asked Tim Jickells for feedback on the proposed structure of the possible new article (Tim recently helped a lot with the article effects of climate change on oceans) and here's his response: "I agree that ocean temperature is important. In the surface it affects ocean currents and weather, and leads to various effects on biological species. There are also really important impacts of temperature on density, ocean circulation and deeper waters, so I can see that the existing "sea surface temperatures" isn't really what you need. Your structure seems logical. Satellites are a very important source of temperature data, but only for the surface skin of the ocean. Below that direct measurements from ships, buoys and autonomous vehicles (marine gliders, submersibles etc) are very important. Nowadays these use various electronic "thermometers", although when I started we still used real thermometers with mercury - quaint anachronisms now. If you can find a supportive physical oceanographer then they can probably help update this material fairly easily." EMsmile (talk) 11:58, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Per WP:DABCONCEPT, there is nothing to disambiguate here, as these are all aspects of a single broad concept. BD2412  T 00:07, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * So the article has now been changed to a stub article, and today I've started to add some information to build up the article. This is work in progress. I feel that I need to hunt down the pdf file of a Oceanography book (or find info in related Wikipedia articles). If anyone has time to help, please jump in. EMsmile (talk) 22:37, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It is much more than a stub now. Well done! BD2412  T 04:41, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Work in progress
I've added some more content to this article, particularly in the section on increasing temperatures. The balance of content is a bit out of whack now, I realise that. The other sections (as outlined above) still need to be built up. It's hard though to describe ocean temperatures without referring to the increase in temperature and what it does to all the other processes. Perhaps once we've developed the section on "Interactions with other ocean processes" we can discuss the ramifications of increasing temperatures there, and less in the separate section about the increase due to climate change. I'm mindful that the section on "rising temperature due to CC" should not become too long and detailed as there are sub-articles for that. I've tried to work with excerpts to make it easier. Basically, the aim would be to just provide a broad overview and explanations and then refer the readers to the sub-articles for more details. EMsmile (talk) 16:34, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

American or British English?
I added the tag "American English" to the talk page but am undecided. Can't see a clear leaning yet but as we're using some excerpts that come from the climate change articles, they might be using British English more? Not sure what to do but I think it would be useful to give people guidance as they build up the article more over time. EMsmile (talk) 13:40, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Discussion about lead image
Hi everyone and in particular User:RCraig09: I'd like to have a little discussion on how the lead image for this article should look. You had placed there one that shows the increase in OHC due to climate change. I think it's a nice image (and I have copied it to the ocean heat content article lead) but I don't think it should be in the lead here for two reasons:
 * 1) The reader is expecting something about temperature, not about OHC and could get confused (it took me a while to get it straight in my head what the difference is...).
 * 2) I am not sure if it's fair to have a lead image that prominently points out warming, rather than to be neutral and just illustrate what ocean temp is, and how it varies with depth and location. I am undecided on this issue. The current one that I have now used is not great but at least it's about temp and is "neutral", i.e. doesn't point out the fact that the ocean temp is increasing. But if there is a strong argument to have a chart that shows temp increasing in the lead already I could also be convinced. Note for the OHC article I think it's fine to have an image in the lead that shows the increase in OHC due to climate change because I think OHC is mainly used in the climate change context only. EMsmile (talk) 12:22, 2 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I appreciate the points you make, and I agree with your change. (I added a chart where there was no chart at all.) Aside: temperature is basically heat per unit volume, so that's not a grand leap of concept. Separately, it is perfectly neutral to state/show that OHC & temperature are increasing (since they are), and to tie it to climate change since that's an issue that many readers will come here seeking to understand. — RCraig09 (talk) 17:00, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Increased_Trend_in_Sea_Temperature.png Thanks. I'm undecided. Maybe an image showing measurements of temperatures at different depths might be a better (and "neutral") lead image? I am also passionate about climate change communications but in this case I just wonder if a chart showing the temp going up would be the right approach (for the lead). Firstly, people might also come to this page simply to find out how warm the ocean water will be at their favourite holiday spot... Secondly, since climate change affects thousands of paramateres on this planet, would each of those Wikipedia articles have a lead image that shows the impacts of climate change? Maybe that is indeed the way it should be heading but would the other Wikipedia editors agree? For comparison, the sea surface temperature articles does have a lead image that shows the increase, so maybe I am being unnecessarily cautious here. Perhaps again an image collage of 2 x 2 could help. Another image option is maybe this one: Increased_Trend_in_Sea_Temperature.png (if we say it's OK to have a climate change image in the lead here; it's a bit too complex maybe?). EMsmile (talk) 13:24, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I am still pondering about this issue. I was going to maybe use the image from the Cheng 2020 paper for the lead (see at the right) but now I have my doubts if this file is really under a compatible licence (pinging User:Peraithadewi). I have the feeling it isn't, see here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-020-9283-7#rightslink EMsmile (talk) 10:12, 27 June 2023 (UTC)