During Chinese Antarctic Research Expedition (CHINARE), ice cores were extracted with a 9-cm internal diameter ice corer on landfast ice in the coastal area off Zhongshan Station (69.37°S; 76.36°E), East Antarctica. Ice temperatures were measured along two chains of thermistors deployed close to the ice core sampling sites. The two thermistor chains were about 2.5 m long and included 26 and 30 sensors respectively, with a regular spacing of 0.06 m. At deployment, the first thermistor was located right at the ice-air interface. The resulting time series describes the evolution of ice temperature over time from 5 April to 29 December 2005, and from 30 March to 20 December 2006, with sample intervals of 6 hours.