As we break the disc yet again for thehottest month on book , stool it all but inevitable that 2016 is the strong year on record , it seems probable that we are going to miss the butt to limit global thawing to within 1.5 ° C ( 2.7 ° F ) of the average . Yet just how far back in sentence do we have to go to discover a yr when the global surface temperatures were not above the average ?
Well the answer is nowhere near as simple as the question belies . There are many yardsticks by which to measure the warming of the planet , something that is not help by the fact that different organizations are using different stick . You have to determinewhether you are blab about a warming over the nation , over the sea , or over both the land and the ocean . All three will give you a different answer . Not to mention that this is then compounded by the fact that you’re able to break it down geographically , look at the Northern Hemisphere , Southern Hemisphere , and once again at both .
More confusingly , even if you choose to look at the warming over solid ground and ocean in both hemisphere , there are still different service line by which to assess on the dot how much warm the planet has become over the last hundred and a half .

Global temperature above the 1880 - 1899 norm . NASA
If we consider the service line as being the average temperaturetaken between 1880 and 1899 , which is generally considered when the warming of the major planet really started to rage up as the Industrial Revolution kvetch off and we begin burning fossil fuels and purge jillion of metric ton of carbon copy dioxide into the atmosphere , the last twelvemonth that the orbicular temperature was not above norm was back in around 1936 . This means you would have to be over 70 years old to have experienced a below - fair year .
If you utilise datafrom NASA , however , you ’ll get another response . They utilize an average taken between the years of 1951 and 1980 , which we have to remember already contains a sure amount of warming from the old hundred twelvemonth . With this data plant then , the last class that the planet was below norm is a lot after at1976 , which mean that you would have to be over 40 to have been alive during a year that was not above the norm .

While there have been many height and troughs over the preceding 100 and a half , all the data consort on a single undeniable fact : There has been a steady rise in globular temperature since the Industrial Revolution , and this rise has increased chop-chop within the last half - century . It is a trend that will remain to arise unless something is done soon .
Global temperatures above the 1951 - 1980 norm . NASA