Global Warming Trend of Mean Tropospheric Temperature Observed by Satellites

We have analyzed the global tropospheric temperature for 1978 to 2002 with the use of passive microwave sounding data from the NOAA series of polar orbiters and the Earth Observing System Aqua satellite. To accurately retrieve the climatic trend, we combined the satellite data with an analytic model of temperature that contains three different time scales: a linear trend and functions that define the seasonal and diurnal cycles. Our analysis shows a trend of +0.22° to 0.26°C per 10 years, consistent with the global warming trend derived from surface meteorological stations.

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