To capture the global land surface temperature signal in a timely way, we have used a blend of traditional long-term in situ climatic data sets, combined with GTS monthly CLIMAT summaries. For the global sea surface, we have combined long-term ship data climatologies with a blend of ship, buoy, and satellite data to provide the greatest possible coverage over the oceans. There is also work underway to apply satellite methods to land surface sampling, but that is in an early developmental phase.