Merged Land–Ocean Surface Temperature Analysis

The Merged Land–Ocean Surface Temperature Analysis (MLOST) is a spatially gridded (5º x 5º) global surface temperature dataset, with monthly resolution from January 1880 to present. NCDC combines a global sea surface (water) temperature (SST) dataset with a global land surface air temperature dataset into this merged dataset of both the Earth’s land and ocean surface temperatures. The SST dataset is the Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) version 3b. The land surface air temperature dataset is similar to ERSST, but uses data from the Global Historical Climatology Network Monthly (GHCNM) database.

NCDC provides the MLOST dataset as temperature anomalies, relative to a 1971–2000 monthly climatology, following the World Meteorological Organization convention. The MLOST anomalies and error fields are available from NCDC’s FTP area and Climate Monitoring group.

Background Information

Improvements to NOAA's Historical Merged Land–Ocean Surface Temperature Analysis (1880–2006), a peer-reviewed paper, describes the MLOST version 3 processing. It also describes changes between versions 2 and 3. The current version (MLOST v3.5) uses ERSST v3b, which includes only in situ SST data, for historical consistency. Version 3 included both in situ and satellite SST data from ERSST v3. Data for the previous month are now available on the third day of the current month.

Data Access

• Global Gridded 5º x 5º Data
  Monthly data in both FORTRAN IEEE binary and ASCII text formats
• ASCII Time Series
  Monthly and annual land–ocean temperature time series are available from 1880 to present for several zonal bands

References

• Smith, T.M., R.W. Reynolds, T.C. Peterson, and J. Lawrimore, 2008: Improvements to NOAA's Historical Merged Land–Ocean Surface Temperatures Analysis (1880–2006); Journal of Climate, 21, 2283–2296, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2007JCLI2100.1.
• Vose, R.S., D. Arndt, V.F. Banzon, D.R. Easterling, B. Gleason, B. Huang, E. Kearns, J.H. Lawrimore, M.J. Menne, T.C. Peterson, R.W. Reynolds, T.M. Smith, C.N. Williams, Jr., and D.L. Wuertz, 2012: NOAA's merged land-ocean surface temperature analysis. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 93, 1677–1685, doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00241.1.

Contact Information

Huai-Min Zhang
huai-min.zhang@noaa.gov

Boyin Huang
boyin.huang@noaa.gov

Tom Smith
tom.smith@noaa.gov

Ron Ray
ron.ray@noaa.gov