# despite the record low in the brightness of the sun over the past three years (it’s been at its faintest since beginning of satellite measurements in the 1970s), a number of warming records have been broken during this time.
# March 2008 saw the warmest global land temperature of any March ever recorded in the past 130 years.
# June and August 2009 saw the warmest land and ocean temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere ever recorded for those months.
# The global ocean surface temperatures in 2009 broke all previous records for three consecutive months: June, July and August.
# The years 2007, 2008 and 2009 had the lowest summer Arctic sea ice cover ever recorded, and in 2008 for the first time in living memory the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage were simultaneously ice-free. This feat was repeated in 2009.
# Every single year of this century (2001-2008) has been warmer than all years of the 20th Century except 1998 (which sticks out well above the trend line due to a strong El Niño event).
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