Notice: This page contains GISTEMP v3 data, which concludes with the July 2019 data update.
As of June 2019, the current GISTEMP version is v4 and may be accessed at data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp.
GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP v3)
The GISS Surface Temperature Analysis is an estimate of global surface temperature change. Graphs and tables are updated around the middle of every month using current data files from NOAA/NCEI GHCN v3 (meteorological stations), ERSST v5 (ocean areas), and SCAR (Antarctic stations), combined as described in our December 2010 publication (Hansen et al. 2010). These updated files incorporate reports for the previous month and also late reports and corrections for earlier months.
This version of our analysis is referred to as GISTEMP v3.
In the current version of the GISTEMP analysis, called GISTEMP v4, GHCN v3 was replaced with the vastly extended collection of meteorological station reports of GHCN v4. The effect of the transition is illustrated here.
News and Updates
September 16, 2019: NOAA/NCEI no longer maintains GHCN v3 since it is essentially a subset of GHCN v4. Consequently, updates to GISTEMP v3 concluded with the July 2019 update. Please see the current GISTEMP v4 for confinued updates and analysis.
June 14, 2019: Starting with this release of our monthly analysis, the GISS temperature analysis, GISTEMP v4, is now based on GHCN v4 for station reports; ocean temperatures are still based on ERSST v5.
See the Updates to Analysis (v3) page for detailed update information about GISTEMP v3.
See the Updates to Analysis page for detailed update information about GISTEMP v4.
Contacts
Before contacting us, please check if your question about the GISTEMP analysis is already answered in the FAQ.
If the FAQ does not answer your question, please address your inquiry to Dr. Reto Ruedy.
Other researchers participating in the GISTEMP analysis are Avi Persin, Michael Hendrickson, Dr. Makiko Sato, and Dr. Ken Lo. This research was initiated by Dr. James E. Hansen, now retired. It is currently led by Dr. Gavin Schmidt.
Citation
When referencing the GISTEMP v3 data provided here, please cite both this webpage and also our most recent scholarly publication about the data. In citing the webpage, be sure to include the date of access.
- GISTEMP Team, 2019: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP), version 3. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Dataset accessed 20YY-MM-DD at https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/.
- Hansen, J., R. Ruedy, M. Sato, and K. Lo, 2010: Global surface temperature change, Rev. Geophys., 48, RG4004, doi:10.1029/2010RG000345.
Tables of Global and Hemispheric Monthly Means and Zonal Annual Means
The following are plain-text files in tabular format of temperature anomalies, i.e. deviations from the corresponding 1951-1980 means.
Combined Land-Surface Air and Sea-Surface Water Temperature Anomalies (Land-Ocean Temperature Index, LOTI)
- Global-mean monthly, seasonal, and annual means, 1880-present, updated through most recent month: TXT, CSV
- Northern Hemisphere-mean monthly, seasonal, and annual means, 1880-present, updated through most recent month: TXT, CSV
- Southern Hemisphere-mean monthly, seasonal, and annual means, 1880-present, updated through most recent month: TXT, CSV
- Zonal annual means, 1880-present, updated through most recent complete year: TXT, CSV
Gridded Monthly Temperature Anomaly Data
Users interested in the entire gridded surface air temperature anomaly data may download netCDF files containing selected series on a regular 2°×2° grid or the basic SBBX binary files.
Compressed NetCDF Files (regular 2°×2° grid)
- Land-Ocean Temperature Index, ERSSTv5, 1200km smoothing (23 MB)
- Surface air temperature (no ocean data), 250km smoothing (9 MB)
Compressed Basic Subbox Grid Series (equal-area grid)
- Surface air temperature, 1200km smoothing - GISTEMP v3 (27 MB)
- Surface air temperature, 250km smoothing - GISTEMP v3 (9 MB)
- Sea surface air temperature (ERSSTv5), currently used (30 MB)
- Sea surface air temperature (ERSSTv4), used until July 2017 (30 MB)
- Sea surface air temperature (ERSSTv3b), used until June 2015 (30 MB)
- Sea surface air temperature (HadR2), used until Nov. 2012 (30 MB)
Also available are various FORTRAN programs and instructions to create (time series of) regular gridded anomaly maps from the basic files. Be sure to read the README file for discussion of the files' binary format.
SCAR Data Used in v3 Analysis
• Return to GISTEMP homepage
References
Please see the GISTEMP references page for citations to publications related to this research. Copies of many of our papers are available in the GISS publications database.
