28 | 
Cruise Report, RV ATAIR, Cruise 0671013-1, Bremerhaven - Skagen - Aberdeen, 19 Jul - 11 Aug 2022 
3. 
Oceanographic Conditions in Summer 2022 
The BSH produces and provides a comprehensive weekly analysis of sea surface tempera- 
tures (see  https:/Awww.bsh.de/EN/DATA/Climate-and-Sea/Sea_temperatures/Sea_sur- 
face_temperatures/sea_surface_temperatures_node.html). This approach combines all meas- 
urements collected from time series stations and ships with satellite data and uses statistical 
methods and spatial interpolation to generate a comprehensive data set. This contains esti- 
mates for the weekly mean values of sea surface temperature as a raster data set with a spatial 
resolution (pixel size) of 20 km x 20 km. 
30°N 
1.5 
57°N 
54°N 
1 
—_ 
(S) 
ne 
3 
40.5 
| 
0 
-0.5 
D 
= 
E 
U 
SE 
1 
1.5 
51°N 
35W 
} 
°F 
at 
2 
Figure 6.1. Spatial distribution of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies for the summer months of 
2022 (June, July and August). Anomalies are shown relative to a climatological mean SST field com- 
prising the summers of the years 1997-2021, Le. 25 years. Source: BSH. 
Information from this blended analysis SST analysis for the summer months of 2022 (June, 
July and August) reveals a region of pronounced warming in the southern and south-western 
North Sea (see Figure 6.1). The centre of this region was located at about 53°30’N off the 
aastern British coast, stretching from the English Channel to around 55°30’N. Here, SSTs were 
1.5°C to 1.75°C warmer than the 1997-2021 climatological summer mean. The north-eastern 
and eastern halves of the North Sea showed a moderate warming with temperature anomalies 
mostly below +0.5°C. Only the region north of 60°N was slightly cooler than the climatological 
summer mean. Thus, almost the entire North Sea was warmer than average in summer 2022.