Data are stored in ASCII

Temperature anomalies are stored in degrees C
Missing data are set to -99.9900

There are 14 columns, the first two contain date information and the 
remaining 12 are area-average anomalies 

Column 1:  year
Column 2:  month
Column 3:  Global average
Column 4:  Southern Hemisphere
Column 5:  Northern Hemisphere
Column 6:  North Atlantic (70-0W, 0-60N)
Column 7:  South Pacific (150E-80W, 0-60S)
Column 8:  Nino region (170E-90W, 10S-10N)
Column 9:  Indian Ocean (30-110E, 50S-20N)
Column 10: North Pacific (130E-110W, 0-60N)
Column 11: Tropics (20S-20N)
Column 12: Nino 3.4 region (170W-120W 5S-5N)
Column 13: South Atlantic (60W-20E, 0-60S)
Column 14: Southern Ocean (South of 50S)

Data run from January 1850 to December 2006 and there are 100 realisations 
of the time series concatenated together one after the other.

Area-averages are calculated by taking the gridbox-area-weighted mean of 
the non-missing values that fall within the specified region.



Monthly version of HadSST3 based on the ICOADS 2.5

Data generated from in situ observations held in the International 
Comprehensive Ocean Atmosphere Data Set, ICOADS (see http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/coads/).

References: 
Kennedy J.J., Rayner, N.A., Smith, R.O., Saunby, M. and Parker, D.E. (2011). 
Reassessing biases and other uncertainties in sea-surface temperature observations 
since 1850 part 1: measurement and sampling errors. in press JGR Atmospheres

Kennedy J.J., Rayner, N.A., Smith, R.O., Saunby, M. and Parker, D.E. (2011). 
Reassessing biases and other uncertainties in sea-surface temperature observations 
since 1850 part 2: biases and homogenisation. in press JGR Atmospheres

Data restrictions: for academic research use only. Data are Crown copyright see 
(http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copyright/copyright-guidance/index.htm)

Updates and supplementary information will be available from http://www.hadobs.org