Upper Air ReportAugust 2002

Microwave Sounding Unit Data

The Lower Tropospheric Temperature time series
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  • Temperatures in the lowest 8km (5 miles) of the troposphere were 0.17ยฐC (0.31ยฐF) above average during June-August 2002, the third warmest boreal summer since satellite records began in 1979
  • Temperatures were 0.15ยฐC (0.27ยฐF) above average for August
  • August 2002 temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere were 0.29ยฐC (0.52ยฐF) above average, or second warmest in the satellite period of record (1979 to present)
The Lower Stratospheric Temperature time series
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  • June-August 2002 temperatures were below average in the lower stratosphere, with a departure of -0.27ยฐC (-0.49ยฐF)
  • It was the tenth consecutive August with below average temperatures in the lower stratosphere, or 0.26ยฐC (0.47ยฐF) below average
  • August temperatures in the lower stratosphere have been below average each year since 1993. The overall cooling trend is consistent with the response to losses in stratospheric ozone while the warm anomalies in 1992 are due to the warming influence of the Mount Pinatubo eruption which occurred in the Philippines in June 1991.

Lower tropospheric and lower stratospheric temperature data are collected by NOAA's TIROS-N polar-orbiting satellites and adjusted for time-dependent biases by NASA and the Global Hydrology and Climate Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Citing This Report

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Monthly Upper Air Report for August 2002, published online September 2002, retrieved on July 17, 2025 from https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/upper-air/200208. DOI: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/metadata/landing-page/bin/iso?id=gov.noaa.ncdc:C00762