January was Actually Warmer than Normal

Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) has released their lower tropospheric temperature anomaly data (based on microwave sounding data on board satellites) for the month of January. I think many of you who live in eastern North America or western Europe will be very surprised to hear that the month of January as a whole was clearly warmer-than-normal when you take most of the globe into account.

The image below, courtesy of RSS, shows the January global temperature anomalies for the lower troposphere (TLT).

--Notice the large areas of below-normal temperatures over western Europe and eastern North America.

--Pockets of much-above normal temperatures were located in the western Pacific, the western U.S. and north Africa.

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Here are the specific temperature anomalies for January from RSS.........

Global anomaly (70 south to 82.5 north): +.322 K
Note: the last time the RSS TLT global anomaly was that high was back in August of 2007.

Northern Hemisphere (0 to 82.5 north): +.449 K

Southern Hemisphere (70 south to 0): +.190 K

United States: +.358 K
Note: The last time the anomaly was this high was back in Nov 2007. Hard to believe if you live in the East. Also, this January anomaly was about a full degree warmer versus the December 2008 anomaly.

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Acknowledgement


MSU/AMSU data are produced by Remote Sensing Systems and sponsored by the NOAA Climate and Global Change Program. Data are available at www.remss.com