Temperatures recorded 5cm above the forest floor in a gridded design (1 to 13m distance) within three, 1 hectare forest plots in Sabah, Borneo. The dataset also includes air temperature data from a nearby weather station at the same temporal resolution, and spatially-interpolated measurements of topography and canopy structure in each forest plot at a 1m resolution. iButton temperature measurement 5cm above the forest floor in gridded design (1-13m distance) within three 1-ha forest plots in Sabah, Borneo. Measurements were taken at 20 minute intervals over one continuous month (November 2015). Dataset also includes nearby weather station air temperature data at identical temporal resolution, as well as spatially-interpolated (1-m) measurements of topography and canopy structure in each forest plot. Output of BALI project (NERC funded Human-modified Tropical Forest Programme).