Preliminary global temperature data is in, and it appears that February 2016 shattered old records.  The data might prove to be an inconvenient truth for global warming deniers, because some of it is coming from one of their own favorite skeptics.

Climatologist Roy Spencer - who is a research scientist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville and the poster boy for the global warming science denier crowd - says/admits the planet was 0.83 degrees Celsius warmer than the long-term average.  And global temperatures rose almost 0.3 degrees from the warmest level in January on record, established last month.

"I've always cautioned fellow skeptics that it's dangerous to claim no warming," Spencer said.  "There has been warming.  The question is how much warming there’s been and how does that compare to what's expected and what's predicted."

Official tallies aren't released until a little later in the month, but some climate journalists are looking over even more datasets and seeing that February 2016 was likely somewhere between 1.15 and 1.4 degrees warmer than the long-term average.  The first day of the Northern Hemisphere spring is 20 March, and it appears that many parts of the world didn't have a winter.  Cities in North America experienced record warmth from coast to coast; In Europe and Asia, dozens of countries set or tied their all-time temperature records for February.

Mankind's northernmost permanent settlement is Norway's Svalbard archipelago; not only has it recorded average temperatures 10 degrees Celsius above normal this winter, but daily high temperatures went above the freezing mark on nearly two dozen days since 1 December.  Arctic Sea ice has been less than usual.