Earlier this week, I posted Comments On Missing Context Information In NOAA’s Report On The Large Positive Land Surface Temperature Anomalies in May 2012 and pointed out a number of problems with the NOAA NCDC data analysis based on the GHCN data, including its warm bias.
Today, I present at the top of this post the May 2012 surface temperature anomaly analysis from NASA’s Earth Observations program.
As written on the NASA’s Earth Observations program website
Land surface temperature is how hot or cold the ground feels to the touch. An anomaly is when something is different from average. These maps show where Earth’s surface was warmer or cooler in the daytime than the average temperatures for the same week or month from 2001-2010. So, a land surface temperature anomaly map for May 2002 shows how that month’s average temperature was different from the average temperature for all Mays between 2001 and 2010.
These maps show land surface temperature anomalies for a given day, week, or month compared to the average conditions during that period between 2000-2008. Places that are warmer than average are red, places that were near-normal are white, and places that are cooler than average are blue. Black means there is no data.
