In early 2011, stratospheric temperatures rose over the tropics due to La Nina while temperatures over the poles fell below the long-term average.
News & Features
Each year, following months of number crunching and fact-checking, hundreds of climate and earth scientists contribute to a global-scale evaluation of climate and environmental conditions over the previous year. This analysis--our planet's annual check up--is known as the State of the Climate report. Highlights of the 2011 State of the Climate report include wild weather extremes, a double-dip La Niña, and continued evidence of long-term climate warming.
Data from 2010 indicate that mountain glaciers predominantly lost mass, and preliminary data from 2011 indicate a continuation of the same long-term trend.
In the spring of 2011, scientists observed the largest, most severe ozone destruction ever witnessed in the Arctic since records began in 1978, due in part to the fact that CFCs stick around in the atmosphere for a very long time. Climate maps reveal the cause to be unusually persistent cold temperatures.
Scorching temperatures during the second half of June 2012 broke or tied over 170 all-time temperature records in cities across America.
NOAA's 2012 hurricane outlook favors a slightly below average number and strength of storms in the central Pacific basin and a near-average season in both the Eastern Pacific and Atlantic basins.
In late-April 2011, an unusual, post-winter Nor’easter brought much-needed rain the Northeast United States.
Spring storms across Europe and the Mediterranean Sea finally swept away a high pressure system that had been fostering increasingly dry conditions over the Horn of Africa in early 2011.
The average global temperature (land and ocean) for May 2012 was the second warmest May temperature since recordkeeping began in 1880, and the temperature over land surfaces was the warmest on record for May. May 2012 also marks the 327th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th-century average.
The average temperature for the United States during May was more than 3 degrees F above the long-term average, making it the second warmest May on record. The month's high temperatures also contributed to the warmest spring, warmest year-to-date, and warmest 12-month period the nation has ever experienced since record keeping began in 1895.