NOAA's Merged Land-Ocean Surface Temperature Analysis

This paper describes the new release of the Merged Land–Ocean Surface Temperature analysis (MLOST version 3.5), which is used in operational monitoring and climate assessment activities by the NOAA National Climatic Data Center. The primary motivation for the latest version is the inclusion of a new land dataset that has several major improvements, including a more elaborate approach for addressing changes in station location, instrumentation, and siting conditions. The new version is broadly consistent with previous global analyses, exhibiting a trend of 0.076°C decade−1 since 1901, 0.162°C decade−1 since 1979, and widespread warming in both time periods. In general, the new release exhibits only modest differences with its predecessor, the most obvious being very slightly more warming at the global scale (0.004°C decade−1 since 1901) and slightly different trend patterns over the terrestrial surface.

[1]  R. Vose,et al.  An Overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network-Daily Database , 2012 .

[2]  P. Jones,et al.  Quantifying uncertainties in global and regional temperature change using an ensemble of observational estimates: The HadCRUT4 data set , 2012 .

[3]  P. Jones,et al.  Hemispheric and large-scale land-surface air temperature variations: An extensive revision and an update to 2010: LAND-SURFACE TEMPERATURE VARIATIONS , 2012 .

[4]  Peter W. Thorne,et al.  Benchmarking the performance of pairwise homogenization of surface temperatures in the United States , 2012 .

[5]  Nigel P. Fox,et al.  Guiding the Creation of A Comprehensive Surface Temperature Resource for Twenty-First-Century Climate Science , 2011 .

[6]  R. Allan,et al.  The International Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth (ACRE) Initiative , 2011 .

[7]  Claude N. Williams,et al.  An overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network monthly mean temperature data set, version 3 , 2011 .

[8]  John Kennedy,et al.  Reassessing biases and other uncertainties in sea surface temperature observations measured in situ since 1850: 2. Biases and homogenization , 2011 .

[9]  Nick Rayner,et al.  Reassessing biases and other uncertainties in sea surface temperature observations measured in situ since 1850: 1. Measurement and sampling uncertainties , 2011 .

[10]  Russell S. Vose,et al.  The U.S. Historical Climatology Network Monthly Temperature Data, Version 2 , 2009 .

[11]  Claude N. Williams,et al.  Homogenization of Temperature Series via Pairwise Comparisons , 2009 .

[12]  M. Menne.  The United States Historical Climatology Network monthly temperature data – version 2 , 2008 .

[13]  Thomas M. Smith,et al.  Improvements to NOAA’s Historical Merged Land–Ocean Surface Temperature Analysis (1880–2006) , 2008 .

[14]  P. Jones,et al.  Uncertainty estimates in regional and global observed temperature changes: A new data set from 1850 , 2006 .

[15]  Steven J. Worley,et al.  ICOADS release 2.1 data and products , 2005 .

[16]  Thomas M. Smith,et al.  A Global Merged Land–Air–Sea Surface Temperature Reconstruction Based on Historical Observations (1880–1997) , 2005 .

[17]  Thomas M. Smith,et al.  Improved Extended Reconstruction of SST (1854–1997) , 2004 .

[18]  Elizabeth C. Kent,et al.  Global analyses of sea surface temperature, sea ice, and night marine air temperature since the late nineteenth century , 2003 .

[19]  Thomas M. Smith,et al.  Extended Reconstruction of Global Sea Surface Temperatures Based on COADS Data (1854–1997) , 2003 .

[20]  P. Jones,et al.  Hemispheric and Large-Scale Surface Air Temperature Variations: An Extensive Revision and an Update to 2001. , 2003 .

[21]  Suranjana Saha,et al.  Empirical Orthogonal Teleconnections , 2000 .

[22]  Thomas C. Peterson,et al.  Global historical climatology network (GHCN) quality control of monthly temperature data , 1998 .

[23]  R. Vose,et al.  An Overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network Temperature Database , 1997 .

[24]  H. L. Miller,et al.  Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis , 2007 .

[25]  Thomas M. Smith,et al.  Bias Corrections for Historical Sea Surface Temperatures Based on Marine Air Temperatures , 2002 .

[26]  P. Jones,et al.  Global Surface Temperature Changes Since the 1850s , 1996 .

[27]  D. Parker,et al.  Correction of instrumental biases in historical sea surface temperature data , 1995 .

[28]  Sm Robeson.  Influence of spatial sampling and interpolation on estimates of air temperature change , 1994 .