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. Totally 25 ice cores were obtained within an area of 20 m by 20 m throughout two ice seasons from November 2004 to December 2006. The ice cores were then quickly cut lengthwise into vertical sections of 0.05-0.10 m thick, sealed in clean plastic containers and then returned to the cold laboratory of Zhongshan Station. Ice density was measured with a mass/volume method. Ice salinity was measured by a portable conductivity meter. 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.