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[Thunder/Music]
Here's the latest from EarthNow…
This display shows the NOAA climate digest for March 2013.
The climate digest summarizes noteworthy statistics for the month, season, and year.
The average global land and ocean temperature for March was the tenth warmest on record,
tied with 2006.
The United States experienced its coolest March since 2002, a stark contrast to last
year’s record-breaking warm March.
Southeastern Australia experienced an intense heat wave during first half of March. Numerous
records were broken.
Much of china also experienced above normal temperatures. March 2013 was actually the
second warmest march on record for China.
Meanwhile, parts of Europe experienced below normal temperatures. In fact, Germany experienced
its fifth coldest March on record, and the United Kingdom had its coldest March since
1962.
Now, we’ll turn to the Arctic sea ice extent. The March sea ice extent for the Arctic was
2.9 percent below the 1981 to 2010 average. This makes it the fifth smallest ice extent
on record, for the month of March.
Finally, we’ll move to Antarctica and discover that its sea ice extent for March was over
20 percent above the 1981 to 2010 average, making it the second largest ice extent on
record.
This real-time dataset is updated monthly and shows the global land and ocean temperature
anomalies. Anomalies are simply departures from average. Blue colors indicate cooler
than normal temperatures, whereas red colors indicate warmer than normal temperatures.
White indicates near average conditions. We’ll take a look at three areas.
First, we can see how much of the United States was well below average for the month of March.
As discussed earlier, Australia experienced record-breaking above average temperatures
for the month.
Lastly, we can see the contrast between above normal temperatures in Asia and below normal
temperatures across northern Europe.
Now, we’ll take another look at the temperature anomalies, but this time the data will switch
back and forth between March 2012 and March 2013. Notice the difference across the United
States between the two years.
This real-time dataset shows sea surface temperature anomalies measured by NOAA satellites. Blue
colors indicate cooler than normal ocean temperatures, whereas red indicates warmer than normal sea
temperatures.
In the eastern tropical Pacific, water temperatures hovered only slightly above average, meaning
that no El Niño or La Niña conditions are present. The Climate Prediction Center expects
this to continue through at least the Northern Hemisphere Summer.
Now, take a look at some of the ocean temperature differences around the world.
This real-time dataset collected by microwave sensors on NOAA satellites shows snow and
ice cover updated daily. Watch the progression of days and note the retreat and expansion
of snowfall.
While Eurasia experienced near average snow cover extent in March, North America’s snow
cover extent was the sixth largest on record.
And that’s your March 2013 climate digest! For more information, please visit the website
shown at the end of this video.