Annual and Seasonal Global Temperature Deviations in the Troposphere and Low Stratosphere, 1958-1998

Angell, J. K., Air Resources Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Silver Spring, Maryland

Prepared by Dale Kaiser and Sonja Jones, CDIAC

NDP-008 (updated 1999) (http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/ndps/ndp008.html)

Surface temperatures and thickness-derived temperatures from a global network of 63 radiosonde stations were used to estimate annual and seasonal temperature deviations (calculated relative to a 1958-1977 reference period mean) over the globe and several zonal regions from 1958 through 1998.

Most of the values are column-mean tempera-tures obtained from the differences in height between constant-pressure surfaces at individual radiosonde stations. The pressure-height data before 1980 were obtained from published values in Monthly Climatic Data for the World. Between 1980 and 1990, Angell used data from both the Climatic Data for the World and the Global Telecommunications System (GTS) Network received at the National Meteorological Center. Between 1990 and 1995, the data were obtained only from GTS, and since 1995 the data have been obtained from National Center for Atmospheric Research files. These temperature deviations may be used to analyze long-term temperature trends for a layer of the atmosphere (i.e., surface, troposphere, tropopause, and low stratosphere), a region (i.e., polar, temperate, subtropical, and equatorial), a hemisphere, or the globe.