Readers may recall yesterday where I posted this stunning image of cold for Europe and Russia for mid December 2009 from the NASA NEO MODIS satellite imager.

Deadly Cold Across Europe and Russia Click image above to enlarge or download large image (3 MB, JPEG) acquired December 11 – 18, 2009 In that story were links to additional images, and I’d planned to return to them for a comparison. Inspired by my posting, METSUL’s Alexandre Aguiar saved me the trouble. There’s an interesting comparison here between the surface anomaly done by weather stations (NASA GISS) and that of satellite measurement (NASA NEO MODIS) – Anthony Guest post by Alexandre Aguiar, METSUL, Brazil COMPARE THE TWO MAPS NASA GISS on the left, NASA MODIS on the right Here’s the same images but larger – click either image for full size:

South America: The vast majority of the continent is near average or below average in the NEO map, but according to GISS only the southern tip of the region is colder. The most striking difference is Northeast Brazil: colder in the NEO map and warmer at the GISS.

Africa: Most of the continent is colder than average in the NEO map, but in the GISS most of Africa is warmer than average.

Australia: The Western part of the country is colder than average in the NEO map, but the entire country is warmer in the GISS map.

Russia: Most of the country is colder than average in the NEO map, a much larger area of colder anomalies that presented in the GISS map.

India: Colder than average at NASA’s NEO website and warmer at NASA’s GISS map.

Middle East: Huge areas of the region (Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Syria) are colder than average in the NEO map and average/warmer in the GISS map.

Europe: Near average or slightly above average in the NEO map and much above average in the GISS map.

Greenland: Entire region colder than average at NEO and much of the area warmer at GISS.

Same source (NASA), but very different maps !!!

Why:

At NEO, land surface maps show where Earth’s surface was warmer or cooler in the daytime than the average temperatures for the same week or month from 2000-2008. So, a land surface temperature anomaly map for November 2009 shows how that month’s average temperature was different from the average temperature for all Novembers between 2000 and 2008.

Conclusion

Despite being very warm compared to the long term averages (GISS, UAH, etc), November 2009 was colder in large areas of the planet if compared to this decade average.

See PDF here. December should be very interesting in the northern hemisphere.