NOAA's Merged Land–Ocean Surface Temperature Analysis

Abstract

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.