You may have read about the recent extraordinary global average temperatures. To give you an idea of how extraordinary these are, the average so far for this year is shown below, superimposed on the famous hockey stick curve, the original Mann, Bradley and Hughes curve from 1999 and the more recent one from the Pages24 consortium from 2013 together with recent instrumental readings.

 
At the recent Paris summit there was pressure to set the target limit to 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level as 2°C would in the long term mean massive flooding in low lying countries. It was only one month, but March 2016 was 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level.  Other indications show that things are changing fast. The area of arctic sea ice is well below the area for this time of year seen in the 37 years that we have had satellite images and almost certainly for long before this. The level of carbon dioxide is not only the highest it has been for over 800,000 years, it has shown by far the largest year on year increase in the 58 years we have accurate measurements.