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Land Surface Temperature

Land surface temperature is a measurement of how hot the land is to the touch. It differs from air temperature (the temperature given in weather reports) because land heats and cools more quickly than air. This image depicts average monthly land surface temperature in degrees Celsius as measured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. The warmest temperatures are pale yellow, while the coldest temperatures are dark blue. Moderate temperatures are depicted in shades of pink and purple. Regions where land surface temperature measurements were not possible are gray.

Total Rainfall

The rainfall maps show total monthly rainfall in millimeters as recorded by NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite. High rain totals are represented in dark blue, while small rainfall totals are shown in white. TRMM measures rainfall in the tropics. High-latitude regions, where TRMM does not record rainfall, are gray.

View, download, or analyze more of these data from NASA Earth Observations (NEO):

Land Surface Temperature

Total Rainfall