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Data

Northern hemisphere temperatures over the long run, deviation from 1951-1990 mean temperature

About this data

Source
GISTEMP Team (2018) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 2, 2019
Date range
1000–2019

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

GISTEMP Team – GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP)

Combined Land-Surface Air and Sea-Surface Water Temperature Anomalies (Land-Ocean Temperature Index, LOTI)

LOTI provides a more realistic representation of the global mean trends than Meteorological Station Data (dTs); it slightly underestimates warming or cooling trends, since the much larger heat capacity of water compared to air causes a slower and diminished reaction to changes; dTs on the other hand overestimates trends, since it disregards most of the dampening effects of the oceans that cover about two thirds of the Earth's surface.

Retrieved on
November 25, 2018
Retrieved from
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
GISTEMP Team, 2018: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP). NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Combined Land-Surface Air and Sea-Surface Water Temperature Anomalies (Land-Ocean Temperature Index, LOTI)

LOTI provides a more realistic representation of the global mean trends than Meteorological Station Data (dTs); it slightly underestimates warming or cooling trends, since the much larger heat capacity of water compared to air causes a slower and diminished reaction to changes; dTs on the other hand overestimates trends, since it disregards most of the dampening effects of the oceans that cover about two thirds of the Earth's surface.

Retrieved on
November 25, 2018
Retrieved from
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
GISTEMP Team, 2018: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP). NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Northern hemisphere temperatures over the long run, deviation from 1951-1990 mean temperature”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from GISTEMP Team. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260513-060106/grapher/northern-hemisphere-temperatures-over-the-long-run-deviation-from-1951-1990-mean-temperature-c.html [online resource] (archived on May 13, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

GISTEMP Team (2018) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

GISTEMP Team (2018) – processed by Our World in Data. “Northern hemisphere temperatures over the long run, deviation from 1951-1990 mean temperature” [dataset]. GISTEMP Team, “GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP)” [original data]. Retrieved May 13, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260513-060106/grapher/northern-hemisphere-temperatures-over-the-long-run-deviation-from-1951-1990-mean-temperature-c.html (archived on May 13, 2026).

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