Researchers looked at trends in global warming that have taken place over the past 100 years.
Researchers were surprised to find that the world is warming, but at different rates depending on the region, a Florida State University news release reported.
"Global warming was not as understood as we thought," Zhaohua Wu, an assistant professor of meteorology at FSU said in the news release.
To make their findings the team used a newly-developed analysis method that they created themselves. The method allowed the researchers to look at land surface temperature trends as far back as the year 1900 for the entire world excluding Antarctica.
Past global studies have not been able to access "information of non-uniform warming in space and time," due to limitations in climate research, the news release reported.
The team found noticeable warming first started in the regions surrounding the Arctic and other subtropical regions in both hemispheres.
The researchers noticed the largest-known accumulation of global warming happened at the northern midlatitudes. They also found that some parts of the world had significantly cooled.
"The global warming is not uniform," Eric Chassignet, director of COAPS, said in the news release. "You have areas that have cooled and areas that have warmed."
One example of cooling occurred between the years of 1910 to 1980 near the Andes, even though the rest of the world was warming up. After this time the region remained stable until the 1990s. Areas near the equator also remained relatively stable during that time.
The study could help researchers gain more insight into warming trends that take place over time.
"The detailed picture of when and where the world has warmed or cooled will provide a greater context to global warming research overall," Wu said, the news release reported.
The study was published in the May 4 edition of the journal Nature Climate Change.
