This year will be the 10th warmest on record, and the hottest featuring the La Nina phenomenon that brings cooler waters to the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the World Meteorological Organization said.
The global average temperature through October was about 0.41 of a degree Celsius (0.74 of a degree Fahrenheit) above the average of 14 degrees from 1961 to 1990. That means the 13 warmest years on record have been in the last 15 years, the organization said.
The findings match scientific evidence showing warming temperatures over the past few decades, said Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at the U.K. Met Office, whose own temperature series feeds into the WMO data. The finding, along with a surge in greenhouse gas emissions, adds to pressure on delegates in Durban to step up the fight against climate change.
“There is a consistent pattern of a changing climate, with the last decade warmer than the previous one, and that decade warmer than the one before,” Stott said in a telephone interview from Exeter, England. “There’s clearly a warming trend. That’s supported by other indicators such as disappearing Arctic sea ice, melting glaciers and rising sea levels.”
Arctic sea ice shrank to its second-lowest extent and lowest volume on record in 2011, according to the WMO.
Durban Downpour
Yesterday, after violent thunderstorms drenched Durban and flooded the basement of the conference center where envoys are meeting, the UN diplomat leading talks said extreme weather is being exacerbated by rising temperatures resulting from greenhouse gas emissions.
“This kind of unseasonable events are the types of abnormal events that we will be seeing more and more due to climate change,” Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework on Climate Change.
Greenhouse Gas Record
Emissions are still rising. The WMO on Nov. 21 said that the concentration in the atmosphere of the three main man-made greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, rose to records in 2010.
“Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached new highs,” WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in today’s statement. “They are very rapidly approaching levels consistent with a 2-degree to 2.4-degree Centigrade rise in average global temperatures, which scientists believe could trigger far-reaching and irreversible changes in our Earth, biosphere and oceans.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-29/world-headed-for-10th-warmest-year-on-record-un-agency-says.html
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