Near surface air temperature (T_a) is important for simulating the melting of glaciers, though its variability in space and time on mountain glaciers is still poorly understood. We combine new T_a observations on glacier in Tibet with several glacier datasets around the world to explore the applicability of an existing method to estimate glacier T_a based upon glacier flow distance. We make a first step at generalising a method and highlight the remaining unknowns for this field of research.