Weather Eye with John Maunder

The latest global average temperatures of the troposphere - those observed from NOAA satellites, are computed by the University of Alabama at Huntsville, in the United States.

The troposphere is the lowest portion of Earth's atmosphere. The average depth of the troposphere is approximately 17 km in the middle latitudes. The word troposphere derives from the Greek tropos for "change" reflecting the fact that turbulent mixing plays an important role in the troposphere's structure and behaviour. Most of the phenomena we associate with the day-to-day weather occur in the troposphere.

The chart shows that since 1979, when reliable satellite observations have been available, there has been little overall trend ( from the average temperatures over the 30 year period 1981 – 2010 in the temperatures in troposphere ( apart from "normally expected " variations), except for a small warming trend.



The data for 2011 are: January 0.00 degrees, February -0.02, March -0.10, April +0.12, May +0.14, June +0.32, July +0.38, August +0.33, September +0.29, October +0.12, November +0.12, December +0.10 degrees C.

The data for 2012 are: January -0.09 degrees, February -0.12, March +0.11, April +0.29, May +0.29, June +0.37, July +0.28, August +0.34 , November +0.28, December +0.20 degrees C.

The data for 2013 are: January +0.50 degrees, February +0.18, March +0.20, April +0.10, May +0.07, June +0.30, July +0.17, August +0.16, September +0.37, October +0.29, November +0.19, December +0.23 degrees C.

The data for 2014 are: January +0.29 degrees, February +0.17 degrees, March +0.17 degrees, and April +0.19 degrees C.

The coolest months (since 1979) were September 1984 (-0.49 degrees C) and November 1984 (-0.42 degrees C), and the warmest months were February and April 1998 (both +0.76 degrees C). The chart shows the 'El Nino” warming in the 1998 period and the Mount Pinatubo (volcanic) cooling during the 1992-1993 period.

For further information on climate science see https://sites.google.com/site/climatediceandthebutterfly/