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GloSAT: GLOBAL SURFACE AIR TEMPERATURE

About GloSAT

The GloSAT project developed a new global record of gridded near-surface monthly air temperature anomalies. What distinguishes it from most existing global temperature datasets is that it begins earlier (in 1781, though with limited spatial coverage) and that it uses air temperature observations over both land and ocean regions (rather than the surface water temperature over the oceans that most other datasets use).

UEA's Climatic Research Unit led the development of the land component of GloSAT, with funding from NERC (grant number NE/S015582/1).

Main GloSAT gridded temperature datasets (combining land and marine data)

GloSATref

GloSATref uses the HadCRUT5-style gridding methods but using the newly developed GloSAT LAT (land air temperature) and GloSAT MAT (marine air temperature) datasets as input. Reference: Morice et al. (2025).

GloSAT gridded temperature datasets for separate land and marine domains

GloSATLAT

GloSATLAT is the gridded Land Air Temperature station dataset for land areas. References: Morice et al. (2025) and Taylor et al. (2025).

GloSATMAT is the gridded Marine Air Temperature station dataset for ocean areas. Reference: Cornes et al. (2025).

Underpinning land air temperature data

GloSAT LATsdb

GloSAT LATsdb is the Land Air Temperature station database used for the GloSATref gridded dataset. Reference: Taylor et al. (2025).

References

Cornes RC, Cropper T and Kent EC (2025) GloSATMAT: monthly, global, gridded marine air temperature data. NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (https://doi.org/10.5285/e6251bf935304cfbb9c9269dc7757a35).
Morice CP, Berry DI, Cornes RC, Cowtan K, Cropper T, Hawkins E, Kennedy JJ, Osborn TJ, Rayner NA, Rivas BR, Schurer AP, Taylor M, Teleti PR, Wallis EJ, Winn J and Kent EC (2025) An observational record of global gridded near surface air temperature change over land and ocean from 1781. Earth System Science Data, accepted.
Taylor M, Osborn TJ, Cowtan K, Morice CP, Jones PD, Wallis EJ and Lister DH (2025) GloSAT LATsdb: a global compilation of land air temperature station records with updated climatological normals from local expectation kriging. Geoscience Data Journal, 12, e70024 (https://doi.org/10.1002/gdj3.70024).
Wallis E, Osborn TJ, Taylor M, Jones P, Joshi M and Hawkins E (2024) Quantifying exposure biases in early instrumental land surface air temperature observations. International Journal of Climatology, 44, 1611-1635 (https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.8401).

License

These datasets are made available under the Open Database License. Any rights in individual contents of the datasets are licensed under the Database Contents License under the conditions of Attribution and Share-Alike.

Please use the attribution Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia

Updated: August 2025