Over 97 percent of climate scientists agree the Earth is warming and that human activity is the main cause of global warming.

A new and stunning GIF visualization of this fact placed online on Twitter has become so popular it's overtaxing the servers that house it. And rebuts the illogical claim of climate change deniers this warming is part of the natural scheme of things.

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Small wonder the servers are overextended. That's because the spiral global temperature animation created by climate scientist Ed Hawkins of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading is an excellent illustration of how hot the Earth has gotten from 1850 until 2016.

You can play the animation here at Hawkins' Twitter account.

What you're seeing is a circular graph that unwinds to show the temperature change every month since 1850. That's a record of 166 years compressed into one easy-to-grasp graphic. As the months and years pass, the planet warms and the circles expand outward to the hottest point in those 166 years, which is this year, 2016.

The animation is based on global temperature data from the Hadley Centre of the United Kingdom's Met Office.

"The animated spiral presents global temperature change in a visually appealing and straightforward way," said Hawkins. "The pace of change is immediately obvious, especially over the past few decades."

"I think there is lots to see -- variations from month to month and decade to decade," said Hawkins. "I wanted to try and visualize the changes we have seen in different ways to learn about how we might improve our communication.

"The spiral appeared to present the information in an appealing and straightforward way. The pace of change is immediately obvious, especially over the past few decades. The relationship between current global temperatures and the internationally discussed target limits are also clear without much complex interpretation needed."

Tagsglobal warming, Ed Hawkins, Hadley Centre of the United Kingdom's Met Office, Climate Change