JISAO data
NCDC global historical climatology network (GHCN) temperature, 1880-present

"In February 2006, NCDC transitioned to the use of an improved Global Land and Ocean data set (Smith and Reynolds analysis, 2005) which incorporates new algorithms that better account for factors such as changes in spatial coverage and evolving observing methods." [NOAA NCDC]
The "global land and ocean data set is Introduction and analyses | Data
The data:
  • netCDF:
    At the JISAO, this data is at /home/disk/margaret/data/gridded_land_temp/ncdc/ There are 3 files: the minimum, maximum, and mean temperature data. I was unable to obtain permission from NCDC to put these data set on the WWW.
  • ASCII: NCDC has more up to date values.
    The National Climatic Data Center produces monthly global anomalies fields from version 2 of the global historical climatology network surface air temperature data. This data is available through last month. The anomalies are with respect to 1961-90. Jay Lawrimore of NCDC is the contact person for this data set ( Jay.Lawrimore@noaa.gov ).

    described in caption
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    There are around 800 land boxes, and the sampling ranges from less than 200 in 1880, increases monotonically to values in excess of 600 for 1950-90, and values greater than 500 from 1990-present.

    described below, global domain
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    Trend for 1950 - September 2002. Generally increased temperatures everywhere with trends in excess of 0.5 degrees C / decade in the Northern Hemisphere mid- to high-latitudes.

    described below
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    Global mean temperature anomaly for 1880 - September 2002. NCDC has up-to-date global mean temperatures on its WWW page.

    References:
    There isn't a published reference for this data set at this writing. Check the NCDC WWW site.
    October 2008
    Todd Mitchell ( mitchell@atmos.washington.edu )
    JISAO data