Unisys Weather has implemented a new colour scheme for the sea surface temperature anomaly (SST Anom). I did see some mention of this in comments elsewhere (WUWT?) but didn’t bother to look until MWhite in comments on the previous post linked to the normal chart: 
Note the link highlighted in yellow on the picture “SST Anom New”. They’ve replaced the old scale with, in some ways, a more sensible one, with a dramatic change at zero – from cool green to a warm yellow to give that warmer feel. Here are the two compared:
It is actually more appropriate and the difference between positive and negative anomalies is now clear, but, on my screen at least, it is hard to tell the difference between the shades of yellow. The dark blue and indigo are also indistinct. Why lose the green, or indeed why lose all the green? It seems to me it would have been equally clear with a couple of the turquoise shades removed and the change at zero being green. Or else shift the green to just below zero and lose some of the extreme negative red colour.
The effect of the distinct yellow/blue boundary does highlight the extensiveness of the positive anomaly, but just keep your eye on the blue bits around Antarctica. Summer is over in the Southern Hemisphere and Winter approaches, while for us it has been reluctant to leave.
Digging in the Clay 
Thanks Verity.
I also find this a fascinating subject. When initially reading your post, I remembered a color scheme change of the Unisys SST anomalies in the past and my first impression was “They changed it again?”. In September 2011 I downloaded an “old” and a “new” version of Unisys SST anomalies and back then came to the same conclusion.
When I now compare the ones of 2011 and 2013, I notice the schemes are the same (but the scale is not really consistent, so it took some time to find out). IMHO, it seems they offer the two versions of the SST anomalies since at least the end of 2011, but found only the old ones in the archive.
It was also on WUWT:
Red-shifting the oceans by Bob Tisdale.
They didn’t ditched the green. In the saved version of 2011, the scale was larger and the green was at the end behind the red (6.5+)… It is also visible in the WUWT post.
Michel
The issue of “net flows” has been stretched literally beyond belief in the climatology world. The Second Law is talking about an isolated system (See Wikipedia – “Laws of Thermodynamics”) and any physicist should be able to tell you that a system in physics has a very specific definition. (Also see Wikipedia “System.”) It can of course have a single component (often represented by a one-way heat transfer between two objects) but if it has more than one component, then the components must be interdependent.
Now, if radiation from a cooler atmosphere were actually able to add thermal energy to a warmer target on the surface, say a rock beside a tidal lake, then that is the first “component.” The problem then to consider runs like this: if that extra energy is then stored for a while (say, until high tide) and the energy then transfers to some water on the surface by conduction, and then that same parcel of energy eventually gets back into the atmosphere with two further “components” such as evaporative cooling of the water, followed by subsequent release of latent heat, where then is the interdependence between any of these four separate components which you are in effect assuming to be all part of the one system, as defined by the Second Law? Sorry, the very first component (if it could occur) is not just a component of a larger system and it would be an outright and indisputable violation of the Second Law.
Think of Venus. Every 4-month long day its surface warms by 5 degrees, and then it cools by five degrees as the atmosphere radiates to space during the 4-month night. The surface temperatures are in the vicinity of 730K to 735K approximately. It takes a lot of energy to warm it by 5 degrees, and it doesn’t happen in the first day of sunshine, especially when you remember that such Solar radiation reaching the surface has only about one tenth of the power of that reaching Earth’s surface. So there must be a process in which energy builds up during the 4 month day.
Now we know that about 97.5% of incident Solar radiation is either reflected or absorbed by the atmosphere, so obviously the atmosphere will warm while the Sun is shining, but gradually over 4 months – say I.25 degree per month.
Clearly we are not talking about a radiative process warming the surface here, because incident radiation would have to be about 16,100W/m^2 into the surface to have any effect in that temperature range. And if it were it could probably do the job in a few hours, not 4 months. Furthermore, we at PSI would insist that any such radiation having any effect on such a hot surface would have to be directly from a hotter source, namely the Sun. We just don’t believe in non-interdependent components violating the Second Law, so we rule out radiation from the colder atmosphere. In any event, with only about 10W/m^2 of incident insolation entering the surface, there’s not a lot of energy to play with for back radiation, now is there?
Perhaps you think that the energy entering the TOA will do the trick. Well look at the figures – something like 2,600W/m^2 from memory before any is reflected away, which is much more than half of it. Perhaps we have about 1,000W/m^2 starting on its way into the atmosphere. (That’s to 1 significant figure – it doesn’t matter what the precise figure is.) How could the atmosphere somehow magnify this about 16 times before it comes out of the base of the atmosphere and into the surface, and why would it have so much more success getting through the atmosphere than did the Solar radiation? Remember – no more than 10W/m^2 could be from back radiation that was sending back energy from the surface, which was sending back energy from the Sun. By the way, Science of Doom has a totally incorrect figure of about 158W/m^2 (if I remember correctly) for the incident Solar radiation reaching the Venus surface. You’d think he would have checked the data from the Russian probes before using a figure which is at least 10 times the real one.
So the Venus surface is not heated by any “runaway greenhouse effect.” If you’re not convinced, then think about how energy gets down into the Uranus atmosphere which is mostly hydrogen and helium. I’m happy to discuss any questions you may have about my explanation of what is happening on these planets – and on Earth, where the Sun cannot heat our surface to 288K with direct Solar radiation alone. Just use SBL to convince yourself of this obvious fact.
Radiative forcing is not what is the primary determinant of Earth’s mean surface temperature. As on Uranus and Venus, and throughout the universe, temperatures in any atmosphere have a propensity to follow a temperature gradient which is between about 65% and 100% of the quotient of the acceleration due to gravity and the weighted mean specific heat of the gases. The level of the plot is determined by the need for radiative balance, so that Is the “starting point.” Then, at whatever temperature the plot intersects the surface, we have a pre-determined base supporting temperature which slows all radiative and non-radiative cooling at night, enabling the Sun (if applicable) to warm somewhat the next day, this being but a marginal effect, as is the slowing of cooling as the surface comes back towards the base temperature. No big changes in climate will occur without natural changes in the parameters just mentioned. That is the “New School of Thought” which we are starting to talk about at PSI. Keep watching for a new article on such within a few days.
[Reply – To repeat what I said here:https://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/tips-and-ot/#comment-5318
“I suggest you create your own blog. It takes a long time and a lot of hard work to build up a relationship with readers and commenters who WANT to read and comment on a blog. You need to learn that art for yourself and I will not allow you to just pontificate here. I will not ban you, but from now I will only allow you to INTERACT with others on what THEY wish to discuss. I will SNIP – ruthlessly – any part of your comments that are pushing your agenda* or referring back to your disagreement with Roy Spencer or Principia etc. You need to learn manners and earn the goodwill of others.”
I have left this comment intact because I see you have placed an identical comment at The Air Vent under another name and in doing so have violated the 300 word challenge set by Jeff Id – so you are likely to be snipped there.
I’ll say it again – if you wish to post long essays like this, get your own blog and work at getting genuinely interested followers to read and comment there. Verity]
Go away, Doug. Your interest index passed boring a long time ago, and has been moving through degrees of “tiresome” since.
I have indeed put a lot of hard work into my two websites http://earth-climate.com and http://climate-change-theory.com as well as thousands of hours into research culminating in two comprehensive papers and a few articles, plus a book on the way. And I make not a cent from my websites or anything to do with this research which is all for the good of humanity, that truth may eventually prevail and lives be saved with humanitarian aid rather than useless carbon dioxide aid.
Jeff Condon has left my comments on his site and so far no one has successfully rebutted with correct physics anything I’ve written.
If your readers study what I write they will learn much and be comforted by the fact that carbon dioxide is not causing any greenhouse radiative warming, and never can..
Would you like me to write an article or you to publish here with a dedicated thread? I have one almost ready to go which will be quite an eye-opener.
[Reply – No. I have no interest in publishing any article by you. You are making a nuisance of yourself. How can I make this any clearer to you? Verity]
[snip – as I warned you I would]
Doug, either you put away your pontifications and ENGAGE – ON TOPIC – with other commenters here in RELEVANT DIALOGUE, or you don’t post at all. Simple. Verity