Cold junction Compensation Thermocouples require some form of temperature reference to compensate for the cold junctions. The most common method is to measure the temperature at the reference junction with a direct-reading temperature sensor. This process is called cold-junction compensation (CJC). Because the purpose of CJC is to compensate for the known temperature of the cold junction, another less-common method is forcing the junction from the thermocouple metal to copper metal to a known temperature, such as 0 ºC, by submersing the junction in an ice-bath, and then connecting the copper wire from each junction to a voltage measurement device.