According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, “The monthly anomaly of the global average surface temperature in August 2015 (i.e. the average of the near-surface air temperature over land and the SST) was +0.45°C above the 1981-2010 average (+0.79°C above the 20th century average), and was the warmest since 1891. On a longer time scale, global average surface temperatures have risen at a rate of about 0.65°C per century.”
See graphic above.
A peek temperature year when atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. Damn that Obama!
The subsequent years help make that peak look so peakey. It is postulated that the effects of the war may have had a negative effect (aerosols, shifts in use of fuel, etc.?). Then there were volcanoes. Eventually the upward trend caught up.
So, imagine that flattish part not happening (a much more real pause than the denio-pause) and append the trend from ca. 1980 to the present on to the early 1940s.