We provide high-resolution surface temperature data for a better understanding of the spatial and temporal variability of sea ice surface characteristics in the Arctic winter. Surface temperature images were recorded during helicopter survey flights with the Infrared VarioCAM HD head 680 from InfraTec. The thermal infrared imaging was performed with a down-looking infrared camera installed in a helicopter. This data set includes 35 flights, which were performed, from a local up to a regional scale, during winter 2019/2020 as part of the MOSAiC expedition in the Arctic Ocean. The measurements were done along the transpolar drift from the northern Laptev Sea towards the Fram Strait between 02.10.2019 and 23.04.2020. The usual flight duration was 90 minutes with a flight altitude of about 300 m. The data set includes one file for every flight in all four different data types: (i) a series of images in NetCDF format, (ii) the displayed map in png format, as well as surface temperature maps in (iii) 1 m resolution and (iv) 5 m resolution, both in NetCDF format. The flights can be identified by the event-related Device Operation label or Flight ID. The metadata of the infrared Camera is registered in the AWI Sensor Web at the current Version under https://hdl.handle.net/10013/sensor.0542bbfb-172a-496f-9bce-b21c59cd02c9. Further information can be found in our Data Manual, linked under Further details.