2010 hottest year on Indian records

Yahoo News 14 Jan 11;

NEW DELHI (AFP) – India experienced its hottest year on record in 2010, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday, blaming the rise in temperatures on global warming.

India's mean annual temperature during 2010 was 0.93 degrees Celsius (33.6 Fahrenheit) higher than the long term (1961-1990) average, according to the Annual Climate Summary of India during 2010.

"Indians experienced the worst summer in the last one century, and this was a definite result of global warming," IMD spokesman B.K. Bandyopadhyay told AFP on Friday. The country's weather records began in 1901.

The study also said that that the 2001-2010 decade was the warmest since the records started, with a temperature averaging 0.40 degrees Celsius (32.7 Fahrenheit) higher than that of the previous decade.

"We are still trying to examine the key reasons responsible for the drastic rise in temperatures and ways to control it," the spokesman added.

Experts on climate change warn that without action the planet's rising temperatures could unleash potentially catastrophic change to the earth's climate system, leading to hunger, drought, storms and massive species loss.

In late 2009, India announced a plan to reduce the growth of its greenhouse gas emissions by becoming more carbon efficient. It aims to cut the emissions generated per unit of GDP by 20 to 25 percent by 2020 compared with 2005.

Last year a study from India's environment ministry said that annual greenhouse gas emissions had increased by 58 percent from 1994-2007, driven by higher industrial activity, energy production and transport.