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Reference evapotranspiration (ET0) is an important variable to estimate all the forms of evaporation and transpiration from crops and vegetation. An accurate estimation of ET0 plays a critical role in crop water management. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has recommended the Penman Monteith (PM) model as the standard to estimate the ET0. However, the PM model requires a large number of input parameters, including the solar radiation (Rs) or sunshine hours (n), the maximum and minimum air temperatures (Tmax and Tmin), Relative Humidity (RH), and wind speed at 2m high (u2). In addition to temperature data, most datasets are often unavailable, incomplete, or of uncertain quality in practice. Thus, the ET0 estimation using temperature data has drawn much attention in recent years. In this study, the recent estimation models were compared to improve the high accuracy of ET0 using the temperature data. The traditional Hargreves-Samani (HS) model (HS1), the improved HS model (HS2), and the PM temperature approach (PMTPP) were recently proposed by Paredes and Pereira. Some latest models were also introduced, including the ea estimation model proposed by Qiu et al., and the temperature-based Rs model (Rs-K) proposed by Korachagaon to improve the PM temperature approach (PMTNew). All models were calibrated and tested using the dataset collected from 51 radiation stations in China during the period 1967-2016. The results showed that the Rs-K model performed a better accuracy for the ET0 estimation, compared with the Rs model proposed by Paredes and Pereira (Rs-HS). For instance, the values of modelling efficiency (EF) were much closer to 1.00, the correlation coefficient (r) increased from 0.92-0.99 to 0.94-0.99, the values of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and the Relative Root Mean Square Error (RRMSE) were reduced by 0.08-0.25 mm/d and 0.03-0.09, respectively, at different climate zones. Except for the arid and hyper-arid climate zones, the average values of RMSE and RRMSE in the HS2 model decreased by 0.05-0.09 mm/d and 0.02-0.03, respectively, and the average values of EF increased by 0.03-0.10, compared with the HS1 model. Although the PMTPP model produced a similar r, the mean values of RMSE and RRMSE from the dry sub-humid and humid climate zones were reduced by 0.01-0.15 mm/d and 0-0.05, respectively, while the EF values increased by 0.01-0.06, compared with the HS2 model. Therefore, the PMTPP model presented a better accuracy than the HS model in estimating the ET0 at various climate zones. Except for the arid and semi-arid climate zones, the PMTNew model further reduced the RMSE and RRMSE by 0.04-0.12 mm/d and 0-0.04, respectively, indicating the higher EF and r values, compared with the PMTPP. In addition, the HS2 model presented a higher Global Performance Index (GPI) value than the HS1 model, indicating a better GPI value in the humid zone. Except for the humid climate zones, the PMTPP model presented a higher GPI value at various climate zones, the mean value of GPI range -0.06-0.42, compared with the HS2 model. The PMTNew model also presented a better GPI of each station, 90% of which ranked the first. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to use the PMTNew model to estimate the ET0 of each station, when the limited data is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]