Rise in temperature over the last 100 years

Averaged over all land and ocean surfaces, temperatures have warmed roughly 1.33°F (0.74ºC) over the last century, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (see page 2 of the IPCC's Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers (PDF)). More than half of this warming—about 0.72°F (0.4°C)—has occurred since 1979. Because oceans tend to warm and cool more slowly than land areas, continents have warmed the most (about 1.26° F or 0.7º C since 1979), especially over the Northern Hemisphere.
The graph above clearly shows the variability of global temperature over various time intervals (such as year to year or between decades) as well as the long-term increase since 1880.
There are slight differences in global records between groups at NCDC, NASA, and the University of East Anglia. Each group calculates global temperature year by year, using slightly different techniques. However, analyses from all three groups point to the decade between 2000 and 2009 as the hottest since modern records began more than a century ago. Temperatures in the 2010s have been running slightly warmer still.