The IPCC and related Climategate climate research agencies conveniently ignore empirical evidence that confirms today's temps are not unusual - data from the Penny ice cap is one such source
(click on image to enlarge)
Read here. Less than credible climate "science" sources, such as the IPCC, continue to claim today's temperatures are "unprecedented" or "unusual." These type of false statements firmly establish the anti-science stance of the political agenda the UN's IPCC agency is pursuing.
The recent global warming science facts from Canada's Baffin Island is another example of the overwhelming evidence that past global warming prior to industrial CO2 emissions was considerably higher.
A team of scientists, Zdanowicz et al., analyzing the summer water melt rate for the Penny ice cap determined its 2010 temperatures were consistent with temperatures of 3,000 years ago - meaning, that current temps are significantly below those of both the Roman and Minoan warming spans. [see their adjacent plot of ice core temps]
"A paper published today in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that a large ice cap in the Canadian Arctic had surface temperatures higher than the present for the vast majority of the past 11,000 years. The paper also shows that the meltwater fraction in 2010 was slightly less than the vast majority of a 7000 year period from roughly 10,000 to 3000 years ago...At latitude 67°N, Penny Ice Cap on Baffin Island is the southernmost large ice cap in the Canadian Arctic, yet its past and recent evolution is poorly documented. Here we present a synthesis of climatological observations...Recent surface melt rates are found to be comparable to those last experienced more than 3000 years ago." [Christian Zdanowicz, Anna Smetny-Sowa, David Fisher, Nicole Schaffer, Luke Copland, Joe Eley, Florent Dupont 2012: Journal of Geophysical Research]