The Last Decade Was the Hottest in 125,000 Years
Most straightforward of our climate change facts: according to the IPCC’s sixth assessment report on the state of our climate, the past decade is likely to have been the hottest period in the last 125,000 years. For about 100,000 years, we have been oscillating between glacial (ice ages) and warmer interglacial periods like the one we currently live in. Yet, this is also the warmest multi-century period we have had in this timespan.
The vertical bar on the left shows the estimated temperature (very likely range) during the warmest multi-century period in the last 100,000 years, which occurred around 6,500 years ago during our current era called the Holocene. Only around 125,000 years ago, a time prior to the last ice age, might have had higher temperature than the ones we are currently experiencing. Each of these past warm periods were caused by slow (multi-millennial) orbital variations that are not in play today.
