Noaa's merged land-ocean surface temperature analysis

Abstract

This paper described the new release of MLOST (version 3.5), the global surface temperature product used by NOAA in monitoring and assessment activities. The primary motivation for the release was the inclusion of a new land dataset (GHCN-M version 3), which contains improved adjustments for 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 over the past century, 0.162°C decade-1 over the past three decades, 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 and slightly different trend patterns over the terrestrial surface. © 2012 American Meteorological Society.