Ultrasound scattered from a volume of tissue depends on tissue properties, such as attenuation, velocity, density, and backscatter coefficient and on the characteristics of the transducer at the insonified volume. We modeled the backscattered signal to determine how its energy varied in response to a change in temperature. Temperature dependence of backscattered energy was dominated by the effect of temperature on the backscatter coefficient. This behavior was seen for both aqueous and lipid-based scatterers in a water-based medium. Temperature dependence of the backscatter coefficient was inferred assuming that the backscatter coefficient was proportional to the scattering cross section of a small (subwavelength) scatterer. In our model backscattered energy increased nearly logarithmically with temperature over the range from 37o to 50o C. Our model predicted a change of +5 dB for the lipid scatterer and a change of up to -3 dB for the aqueous-based scatterer over that temperature range. Our experimental results in bovine liver showed that backscattered energy change was similar to that predicted. Total backscattered energy at 7.5 MHz, along a 1.5 cm paths from 19 sites in three specimens, changed by as much as +4 or -3 dB over the range from 37 to 45 oC. Energy of individual scatterers along those paths changed monotonically with temperature by as much as ±7 dB. Because our approach exploits the inhomogeneities present in tissue, for situations in which temperature dependence of the backscattered energy can be calibrated, it may be possible to use the backscattered energy levels to track temperature distributions in tissue volumes.