Climate.gov: The Global Temperature Anomaly

Basically everything that we think of as “modern human civilization”—permanent agriculture, continuously occupied cities, free WiFi—has emerged since the last ice age ended roughly 11,000 years ago.
In this animation, the Earth rides the "Global Temperature Anomaly," a rollercoaster that shows the difference from historic average temperature since the last ice age.
Not only is the current “hill” on the roller coaster as high or higher than anything our species has experienced since we first settled down from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, but it’s also the steepest climb. Compared to the past 11,000 years, the current track is nearly vertical.
NOAA Climate.gov animation and art work by Carlyn Iverson and Emily Greenhalgh. Roller coaster is based on paleoclimate data from Marcott et al, 2013. (Available online @ http://science.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2013/03/07/339.6124.1198.DC1)

Marcott, S. A., Shakun, J. D., Clark, P. U., & Mix, A. C. (2013). A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years. Science, 339(6124), 1198–1201. http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1228026.
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