NOAA Reports 8th-Warmest January-March on Record

Earth News: The combined surface average temperature for land and ocean from January to March was the eighth-warmest on record since tracking began in 1880, NOAA said in an analysis released today, April 17, 2009.Temperature for the quarter: about 55 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly a degree above the 20th-century average.

The average combined temperature for March was 55.9 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly a degree above the 20th-century average for that month, the report says.

The average global land surface temperature for March was 42.5 degrees Fahrenheit, about 1.7 degrees above the 20th-century average. The average global ocean surface temperature for the month was 61.4 degrees Fahrenheit, about 0.7 degree above the 20th-century average.

Snow cover in March remained near the 1967-2009 average for North America but sank below averages for Europe and Asia.

Snow in Europe and Asia covered about 9.3 million square miles, or 0.4 million square miles below the 1967-2009 average of 9.7 million square miles. It was the ninth-smallest snow cover recorded for Eurasia over the last 43 years.

Arctic sea ice coverage in March was at its sixth-lowest point since satellite record-keeping began in 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The 5.9 million square miles of coverage was about 3.7 percent below the 1979-2000 average.

Sea ice usually reaches its maximum coverage in March, the report notes. Arctic sea ice coverage has declined at an average rate of 2.7 percent since 1979.

Antarctic sea ice coverage in March, however, rose, reaching its fourth-greatest level of the last three decades. The Antarctic sea ice extent was 15.8 percent above the 1979-2000 average.

The report is based on preliminary data that are subject to revision.

Click here to view the report.

Earth News

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