Discrepancies between the [O iii] and [S iii] temperatures in H ii regions

Context. Analysis of published [O iii] and [S iii] temperatures measurements of emission line objects consisting of Hii galaxies, giant extragalactic Hii regions, Galactic Hii regions, and Hii regions from the Magellanic Clouds reveal that the [O iii] temperatures are higher than the corresponding values from [S iii] in most objects with gas metallicities in excess of 0.2 solar. For the coolest nebulae (the highest metallicities), the [O iii] temperature excess can reach ~3000 K.