Global warming? Not this month

In Tech
Friday, June 13, 2008

According to the latest global temperature report from an ongoing joint project between University of Alabama at Huntsville, NOAA, and NASA, it was a cool May 2008.

Highlights include:

Tropics see 5th coolest month
Globe coolest since January 2000
Global trend since 16 November 1978: +0.13°C per decade
Preliminary May temperatures were:

Global composite temperature: - 0.18°C (about 0.32°F) below 20-year average for May
Northern Hemisphere: - 0.05°C (about 0.09°F) below 20-year average for May
Southern Hemisphere: - 0.31°C (about 0.56°F) below 20-year average for May
Global average temperatures and temperatures in the tropics continued to fall in May, driven by a La Nina Pacific Ocean cooling event.

Compared to seasonal norms, temperatures in the tropical third of the globe nearly tied for the fourth coolest month in 29 years, while the globe was cooler than at any time since January 2000, according to Dr. John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center at UA-Huntsville.

(Article continues below)

A broad band of cooler than normal air virtually girdled the globe in May. The tropics were 0.58°C (about 1.04°F) cooler than seasonal norms in May.

As part of an ongoing joint project between UA-Huntsville, NOAA, and NASA, Christy and Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at UA-Huntsville, use data gathered by microwave sounding units on NOAA and NASA satellites to get accurate temperature readings for almost all regions of the Earth.

This includes remote desert, ocean, and rain forest areas for which reliable climate data are not otherwise available.

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