"primary metric for El Niño. It was 0.8 °C (1.4 ˚ F) above the long-term average (long term = 1991–2020) in June"

Hi,

Thanks for putting these blogs together. Education is such a powerful tool.

My question is about the long term average above. So as we have increasing ocean temperatures it appears that the absolute value of this long term average is likely steadily climbing as we roll more years into the average.

How does the absolute value now compare with the absolute value that previous El Nino events had had to reach before being declared? What bar did the 1997-98 El Nino have to reach?

Sorry if this is all obvious and explained somewhere else.

Harry