And by “Shut. Up.” I mean shut up about whether or not global warming is real.

The National Climatic Data Center of NOAA has just released the number representing the Earth’s surface temperature for February and it is a shocking 0.82 degrees C above the 20th century average. This is the second warmest Feb on record, and I’m pretty sure it is the third warmest month on record, in that data base.

Roughly speaking, the coldest we have experienced, the Last Glacial Maximum, was about 6 degrees colder than at present. It is generally thought that we need to keep the global surface temperature below about 2 degrees C above the preindustrial level. The 20th century average used by NOAA includes decades warmed considerably by human caused greenhouse gas pollution; the actual difference between the best estimate (BEST 1750-1850) of the pre-industrial temperature and the present is about 1.5 degrees C.

This high value is not surprising since the estimate of the Earth’s surface temperature from NASA GISS, which came out a few days ago, also places February very high in temerature.

March, by the way, has been pretty warm. We’ve had quite a trend of very warm months, and it appears to not be letting up.

For a comparative perspective, see also this.