This article is more than 2 years old.

July 3, 2013 This article is more than 2 years old.

The World Meteorological Organization just released its Global Climate Report (pdf), which wastes no time in announcing a stark truth. The report’s first sentence: “The first decade of the 21st century was the warmest decade recorded since modern measurements began around 1850.”

Nine out of ten years between 2001 and 2010 were among the ten warmest in recorded history, according to the report, and the warmest year to date was 2010. For those worried about glacier melting, the heat spike wasn’t isolated to land. The decade was warmest for both land and ocean surface temperatures.

In case anyone still doubts the existence of global warming, take a gander at this chart:

