July not so hot worldwide

Over the last three decades the world has warmed at a rate of about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit per century, according to NASA satellite data.

But as broiling as July was in the Philadelphia region and the nation's midsection, the month  wasn't all that hot worldwide.

July 2012 finished about 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit above the normal in the database, which dates to November 1978.

Relative to normals, it was the coolest month since March, and the coolest July since 2008.

According to John Christy, director of the Early System Science Center at the University of Alabama and a keeper of the database, the South Pole is having one heckuva winter. Temperatures in July down there were better than 8 degrees below normal.

The global warm spot was in North American, in northeastern Alberta, were temperatures were 6 degrees-plus above what they would be typically.

Here is the month-by-month breakdown of temperature anomalies, in degrees Celsius.

We have not yet seen the National Climate Data Center July world-temperature report, but we will post when it shows up.