Ask Don Paul: How do we know global temperatures are the hottest in recorded history?

The world’s oceans, land, and lower atmosphere have warmed significantly in the mean since 1880. On that timescale, the phrase “settled science” strictly applies.

In more recent history, the hundreds of thousands of reliable observations taken since 1979, including satellite-derived data, almost certainly make this University of Maine Climate Change Institute headline entirely accurate.

The duration and intensity of extreme heat wave in Texas and the South Central U.S. is tied to the development of what is known as a heat dome, writes Don Paul

The prestigious European scientific weather and climate agencies take this global data back to 1940, still with great detail. 

The 8 hottest years on global record have occurred since 2016, the hottest year of all so far, when a strong El Nino added natural heat to the human activity-caused global warming. It was just in March when the globe completed a rare 3 year La Nina, which generally produces some global cooling. If anything, this lengthy La Nina may have slowed the rate of warming, but actual cooling was not evident. 

Now, the world is headed into what is likely to be a strong El Nino. This will again add more heat to the oceans, land and the lower atmosphere, on top of the warming produced by human…

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