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Geographic analysis of differences in trends between nearsurface and satellite‐based temperature measurements
Author(s) -
Balling Robert C.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/96gl02762
Subject(s) - northern hemisphere , satellite , latitude , climatology , environmental science , thermometer , differential (mechanical device) , troposphere , sea surface temperature , geology , meteorology , geography , geodesy , physics , quantum mechanics , aerospace engineering , engineering
The purpose of this article is to assess geographical differences that exist in the differential trends between the satellite‐based lower‐tropospheric temperature measurements and the near‐surface temperatures measured by the land and sea thermometer network. Over the period 1979–1994, a highly significant difference of 0.28°C exists between the two global data sets. Analyses presented in this paper show that most of this difference comes from tropical ocean areas, with a much smaller contribution from the mid‐latitude land areas of the Northern Hemisphere. The implications of these results to the many explanations for the differential trend between the data sets are discussed.