When people talk of the rising temperature of the earth, are they talking about air temperature or surface temperature (skin or meteorological)?
A. The discussion is about both skin temperature and lower tropospheric temperature. The data are spread amongst many instruments. There are ocean buoy, ground station, radiosonde and satellite measurements. The devil is in the details, for various researchers have had to institute strong quality control to detect subtle trends within the much larger seasonal and inter annual (El Nino, La Nina, Pacific and Atlantic decadal oscillations) as well as instrumental effects. There is no one agreed-upon compendium of measurements to which I can refer you. Recently, a new set of observations has been added to the mix – sea level and mass measurements. We can now measure mid-oceanic sea levels to a faction of an inch from satellites and the mass of ice in the polar regions from gravity anomalies. I can only suggest that you look through the peer-reviewed literature (Google Scholar is a good resource) and the various web sites supported by NASA, NOAA and the Geological Survey. The scientific pub
