Earth on track to be 'hottest in human history'

Earth is on track to becoming the hottest it has been at any time in the past 11.3 millennia, a period spanning the history of human civilisation, a new study says.

An ABC news story: “Earth ontrack to be hottest in human history: study” tells how fossil samples and other data collected from 73 sites around the world, have allowed scientists to reconstruct the history of the planet's temperature from the end of the last Ice Age around 11,000 years ago to the present.

“They have determined the past 10 years have been hotter than 80 per cent of the past 11,300 years,” the ABC reports.