The temperature dependence of the asymmetry between Stokes and anti-Stokes Raman scattering can be exploited for self-calibrating, optically-based thermometry. In the context of cavity optomechanics, we observe the cavity-enhanced scattering of light interacting with the standingwave drumhead modes of a Si3N4 membrane mechanical resonator. The ratio of the amplitude of Stokes to anti-Stokes scattered light is used to measure temperatures of optically-cooled mechanical modes down to the level of a few vibrational quanta. We demonstrate that the Raman-ratio technique is able to measure the physical temperature of our device over a range extending from cryogenic temperatures to within an order of magnitude of room temperature.Raman light scattering has proven to be a robust and powerful technique for in situ thermometry. Many material-specific properties governing Raman transitions, such as the Stokes shift, spectral linewidth, and scattering rate vary with temperature. However, for all Raman systems the ratio of spontaneously scattered Stokes versus anti-Stokes photons is a direct measure of the initial population of the motional state. For example, at zero temperature the process of anti-Stokes scattering, which attempts to lower the motional state below the ground state, is entirely suppressed, whereas the Stokes scattering, which raises the motional state, is allowed. For thermally occupied states, an absolute, self-calibrating temperature measurement is possible by measuring this asymmetry in Raman scattering. Distributed optical fiber sensors [1] and solid state systems [2-4] make use of spontaneous Raman scattering between optical phonon levels for temperature measurements, and combustion chemistry diagnostics use rotational-vibrational molecular levels in a similar fashion [5]. Ultracold trapped ions [6,7] and neutral atoms [8,9] employ motional Raman sideband spectroscopy to reveal thermal occupations near the quantum ground state. Recent experiments in the field of quantum cavity optomechanics [10][11][12] use cavity enhancement to collect Raman-scattered light from localized acoustic resonances demonstrating the Stokes/anti-Stokes asymmetry.Here we measure the asymmetry of Raman scattering from a single, resonant laser tone driving a membranein-cavity optomechanical system (Fig. 1). The motional states are the MHz frequency vibrational levels of a membrane mechanical resonator, and an optical resonance is provided by an optical cavity surrounding the membrane. The asymmetry becomes more pronounced in certain mechanical normal modes of the resonator when they are optically cooled near their ground state with a separate laser tone. We use these measurements to verify that the damped displacement spectral density near the membrane resonance frequency is equal to that expected from a resonator occupied withn ∼ 2 vibrational quanta (∼150 µK effective temperature). Additionally, we measure the physical temperature of our device by extrapolating the Raman sideband asymmetry to zero optical damping. These measur...