This measurement comes less than a month after the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences gave the integrity of the satellite data a clean bill of health. Figure 1 shows the monthly global temperature history as recorded by the satellites.
Several features are very clear.
This is a result of the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, which injected massive amounts of ash and other particulates high into the atmosphere. Those particulates blocked incoming solar radiation and cooled the globe. Notice, too, how temperatures slowly recovered over the next several years as those particles gradually were removed from the atmosphere. After El Ni o dissipated, temperatures returned to their pre-El Ni o levels. Then they slowly returned to their pre-El Chicon values, as well.