2016 was the warmest year since humans began keeping records, by a wide margin. Global average temperatures were extremely hot in the first few months of the year, pushed up by a large El NiƱo event. Global surface temperatures dropped in the second half of 2016, yet still show a continuation of global warming.
This is the third record-breaking year in a row.
Berkeley Earth's work has been published in Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1601207) (DX)
Also at NASA (Javascript required) and the Washington Post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @02:04PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager [wikipedia.org]