Here is the latest Remote Sensing Systems global temperature anomaly image for August, using microwave sounding units mounted on NOAA satellites, which measures the temperature of the lower troposphere.

August 2008.

Observations.....

1. Well above the 1979-1998 mean from Hudson Bay, Canada to west of Greenland and also over northern Siberia.
2. Cool compared to normal once again over Alaska and also over Australia.

For fun comparison, here is the image from August, 1998 (Strong El Nino year).

And August, 1988 (That was a very hot/dry summer in the Eastern U.S. as I recall)

Actual statistics for August, 2008

Global land/sea temperature anomaly: +0.146 K

Northern Hemispheric temperature anomaly: +0.315 K

Arctic region temperature anomaly (60N to 82.5 N): +0.935 K

Year so far globally.......+0.041 K by my calculations

Acknowledgement

MSU/AMSU data are produced by Remote Sensing Systems and sponsored by the NOAA Climate and Global Change Program. Data are available at www.remss.com

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Update (UAH data)...................

The University of Alabama at Huntsville has posted their latest global temperature anomaly map for August. These are measured against the 20-year average from 1979-1998.

UAH also gathers their data through microwave sounding units on NOAA satellites, but their version covers more of the polar regions compared to RSS.

Here are the UAH temperature anomaly results for August, but they are still preliminary.

Global: -0.01 C or -0.02 F
Northern Hemisphere: +0.17 C or +0.31 F
Southern Hemisphere: -).19 C or -0.34 F