MATLAB: How to plot years on x axis

years on x axis

I have monthly mean temperature data for about 31 years from 1975-2005. Each year I am having 12 values. How to plot this data having years on x-axis.
The format of the data is shown below:
1975 -66.0577
1975 -66.3039
1975 -65.4235
1975 -66.6143
1975 -66.1449
1975 -70.4912
1975 -73.0337
1975 -73.8322
1975 -69.5114
1975 -65.6445
1975 -65.815
1975 -65.5371
1976 -63.9651
1976 -66.7147
1976 -66.5698
1976 -66.4407
1976 -66.4912
1976 -69.1049
1976 -71.5498
1976 -73.0278
1976 -70.1491
1976 -69.9583
1976 -68.8625
1976 -63.2717

Best Answer

There are several ways to approach that, including datetime (link) arrays.
A simple solution is:
M = [ 1975 -66.0577
1975 -66.3039
1975 -65.4235
1975 -66.6143
1975 -66.1449
1975 -70.4912
1975 -73.0337
1975 -73.8322
1975 -69.5114
1975 -65.6445
1975 -65.815
1975 -65.5371
1976 -63.9651
1976 -66.7147
1976 -66.5698
1976 -66.4407
1976 -66.4912
1976 -69.1049
1976 -71.5498
1976 -73.0278
1976 -70.1491
1976 -69.9583
1976 -68.8625
1976 -63.2717];
T = datenum([M(:,1) ceil(rem(1:size(M,1),12.1))', zeros(size(M,1),3) ones(size(M,1),1)]);
figure
plot(T, M(:,2))
datetick('x', 'yyyy')
xlim([min(T), max(T)])
Experiment to get the result you want.