Greenland vs South Africa: Temperature change
Temperature change over time
- Greenland
- South Africa
How they compare
Greenland currently reports 2.17 °C against 1.05 °C in South Africa, a difference of 1.12 °C.
That makes Greenland's figure about 2.1 times South Africa's.
The two have swapped places 21 times across 65 shared years of data; in 1961 it was South Africa ahead.
Greenland ranks 36th and South Africa ranks 36th of 250 countries.
Across the 7 decades both report, Greenland averaged higher in 4 and South Africa in 3.
Head to head by decade
| Decade | Greenland | South Africa | Difference | Ahead |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960s | 0.1381 °C | 0.0632 °C | 0.0749 °C | Greenland |
| 1970s | -0.3142 °C | 0.0145 °C | 0.3287 °C | South Africa |
| 1980s | -0.4031 °C | 0.3287 °C | 0.7318 °C | South Africa |
| 1990s | -0.2023 °C | 0.5043 °C | 0.7066 °C | South Africa |
| 2000s | 1.34 °C | 0.7195 °C | 0.616 °C | Greenland |
| 2010s | 1.61 °C | 1.15 °C | 0.4586 °C | Greenland |
| 2020s | 1.64 °C | 1.09 °C | 0.556 °C | Greenland |
Averages of every year both report within each decade.
Frequently asked questions
- Which has higher temperature change, Greenland or South Africa?
- Greenland, at 2.17 °C against 1.05 °C in South Africa as of 2025.
- What is the difference in temperature change between Greenland and South Africa?
- 1.12 °C, with Greenland ahead.
- How many years of comparable data are there for Greenland and South Africa?
- 65 years are reported by both, from 1961 to 2025.
- How do Greenland and South Africa rank globally for temperature change?
- Greenland ranks 36th and South Africa ranks 36th of 250 countries.
- Where does this data come from?
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, published as Temperature change. Statizoid refreshes it automatically from the source and publishes the full history for both places.
Individual pages
About this data
The FAOSTAT Temperature change on land domain disseminates statistics of mean surface temperature change by country, with annual updates. Statistics are available for monthly, seasonal and annual mean temperature anomalies, i.e., temperature change with respect to a baseline climatology, corresponding to the period 1951–1980. The standard deviation of the temperature change of the baseline methodology is also available. Data are based on the publicly available GISTEMP data, the Global Surface Temperature Change data distributed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA-GISS).