John Kennedy: Thanks for commenting. One of the topics raised by the post was World War II adjustments. About a year and a half ago, I started a post but never got around to finishing it. It included an animation of the HADSST2 SST anomalies for 1939 through 1947, using maps of 12-month average data to reduce the seasonal component and weather noise. One of the periods that looked very odd was the boreal winter of 1943/44. Example: the 12-month period, ending in June 1944.
http://i41.tinypic.com/17sck7.jpg
And here’s the HADSST3 map for the same period:
http://i42.tinypic.com/f3dk4m.jpg
There appears to be a strong La Niña pattern. The SPCZ and KOE have relatively high positive anomalies. The only thing missing is the strongly depressed SST anomalies in the cold tongue. It looks like there’s a cold spot in the eastern equatorial Pacific, about 120W, but I would expect a stronger signal in the NINO3.4 region with the SPCZ that high. Are we missing a La Niña in the equatorial Pacific data around that time?
Here’s the HADSST2 animation in its entirety:
http://i41.tinypic.com/34papf9.jpg
Regards