Graph of the Day: Global Temperature Anomalies, August 2009
The combined global land and ocean surface temperatures for August 2009 ranked as the second warmest August on record since records began in 1880. The combined global land and ocean temperature anomaly was 0.62°C (1.12°F), falling only 0.05°C (0.09°F) short of tying the record set in 1998. Sea surface temperatures (SST) during August 2009 were warmer than average across much of the world’s oceans, with cooler-than-average conditions across the higher-latitude southern oceans and the northern parts of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The August 2009 worldwide ocean SST ranked as the warmest on record for a third consecutive month—0.57°C (1.03°F) above the 20th century average of 15.6°C (60.1°F). This broke the previous August record set in 1998, 2003, and 2005. Meanwhile, the worldwide land surface temperature represented the fourth warmest August on record. During the month of August, warmer-than-average temperatures were present across large portions of the world’s land areas with the exception of cooler-than-average conditions across Japan, the central contiguous United States, parts of Canada, western Alaska, and western Russia. In the Southern Hemisphere, both the August 2009 average temperature for land areas, and the Hemisphere as a whole (land and ocean surface combined), represented the warmest August on record. According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), Australia had its warmest August since national temperature records began 60 years ago. Temperatures ranged from 2-6°C (4-11°F) above average across the nation. The August 2009 average temperature for the nation as a whole was 2.47°C (4.45°F) above the 1961-1990 average, shattering the previous record by 0.98°C (1.76°F). In addition to the Australian mean temperature record, Australia’s maximum temperature anomaly for August 2009 was 3.20°C (5.76°F), surpassing the previous record of 3.11°C (5.60°F) set in April 2005. Additionally, the maximum temperatures for all of Australia’s states (with the exception of Tasmania) ranked in the top five, with Queensland and the Northern Territory having their highest August maximum temperatures. …
