Systems and methods for thermal gradient compensation for ring laser gyroscopes are provided. In one embodiment, a method for producing bias compensated angular rate measurements from a ring laser gyroscope comprises: sampling an angle measurement output from a laser block sensor to obtain an angular rate measurement; obtaining an laser block temperature measurement (Tblock) for the laser block sensor; obtaining a temperature gradient measurement (Tdiff) for at least one gradient line across a portion of the laser block sensor; calculating a rate bias error by applying parameters produced from the temperature measurement (Tblock) and the temperature gradient measurement (Tdiff) to a thermal gradient compensation model, wherein the thermal gradient compensation model includes at least one coefficient corresponding to the temperature gradient measurement (Tdiff); and calculating a difference between the angle rate measurement and the rate bias error to produce a bias compensated angular rate measurement.