Cool

Coolest March since 1994

Apr 8, 2011; 10:58 AM ET

Remote Sensing Systems has released their satellite measured temperature data for the month of March 2011.

March 2011 ended up as the coolest March globally since March of 1994. The actual global temperature anomaly for the lower troposphere last month was negative 0.026 C.

This is also the first month since June of 2008 that the global temperature anomaly was in the negative.

The RSS image below gives you a visual of where the warmer and colder than normal regions were across the globe for March 2011.

As you can see, much of the southern U.S. and Mexico was unusually warm, along with northeast Asia. Much of western Canada and Greenland experienced below normal temperatures.

La Nina was still in control across the equatorial Pacific with a large area of cooler than normal sea surface temperatures which helped keep that region in the blue.

More specifically, the Arctic region was well above normal for March, coming in at +1.387 C, while the continental U.S. was close to normal with a temperature anomaly of plus 0.073 C.

You can see the actual data right here.

Despite the recent cooling, the decadal temperature trend for the lower troposphere remains upward at + .145 C. (see image below)

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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.