Globe has 2nd or 6th warmest February on record

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1450

The globe recorded its sixth warmest February since record keeping began in 1880, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) National Climatic Data Center. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies rated February 2010 the second warmest, behind 1998. The year-to-date period, January - February, is the 5th or 2nd warmest such period on record, according to NOAA and NASA, respectively. NOAA rated February 2010 global ocean temperatures as the 2nd warmest on record, next to 1998. February land temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere were the warmest on record, but in the Northern Hemisphere, they were the 26th warmest. The relatively cool Northern Hemisphere land temperatures were due in part to the much-above average amount of snow on the ground--February 2010 snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere was the 3rd highest in the 44-year snow cover record. For the entire winter, the Northern Hemisphere had the 2nd greatest snow cover on record, the U.S. had its greatest snow cover, and Eurasia had its 4th most.

Global satellite-measured temperatures for the lowest 8 km of the atmosphere were the second warmest on record in February, according to both the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) and Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) groups. Both groups also rated the winter of 2009 - 2010 the 2nd warmest winter on record. The record warmest February and winter occurred 1998.

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February 2010 Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent was the 4th lowest since satellite measurements began in 1979. Ice extent was lower than in 2009 and 2008, but greater than in 2005, 2006, and 2007, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The weather pattern over the Arctic during much of February 2010 featured a strongly negative Arctic Oscillation (AO). This pattern tends to slow the winds that typically flush large amounts of sea ice out of the Arctic between Greenland and Iceland. In this way, a negative AO could help retain some the second- and third-year ice through the winter, and potentially rebuild some of the older, multi-year ice that has been lost over the past few years.