Ocean temperature change around New Zealand over the last 36 years

New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research (2019)

Ocean temperature changes around New Zealand are estimated from satellite sea surface temperature (SST) products since 1981, two high resolution expendable bathythermograph transects (HRXBT) since 1986 and 1991, and Argo data since 2006.

The datasets agree well where they overlap. Significant surface warming is found in subtropical waters, and all NZ coastal waters are warming. Temperature changes are surface intensified, extending to ∼200 m in the northeast and at least 850 m in the eastern Tasman.

Significant interannual variability is coherent over a large area of ocean north of the Subtropical Front and modulates extreme events.