[centurion316]

One of the dirty little secrets about climate data is that much of the data on the oceans’ currents, ocean temperatures, etc. come from the age of sail. This information was critical to a sailing ship and so was widely and diligently collected by all of the world's navies. The Royal Navy's data is the most extensive, but the American Navy did some of the most important scientific work on ocean currents.

When steam supplanted sail, most of this scientific work ceased. Steam ships didn't care much about currents and so no one bothered to expand man's knowledge about the sea. Most of the data used to population the Global Circulation Models (GCMs) come from data that is over 100 years old. Data outside the normal sea lanes is sparse. Our understanding of the sea and its physical properties lags way behind our understanding of the atmosphere.

Which one do you think is more important when it comes to world climate?

[Wilhelm Tell]

Interesting. I had not thought much about that, that in the days of sailing ships much information was collected that no one collects any more.