Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle PlanetArk 20 Jan 11;
Last year was the world's second warmest behind 1998 in a temperature record dating back to 1850, adding to evidence of a long-term trend of climate change, data from British institutes showed on Wednesday.
Phil Jones, director of research at Britain's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), told Reuters world surface temperatures in 2010 were about 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 Fahrenheit) above the average for 1961-1990.
His unit, compiling data with the Met Office Hadley Center, is one of three main groups worldwide tracking global warming. Last week the other two, based in the United States, said 2010 was tied for the hottest on record.
Jones said the data showed that all but one year in the past decade were among the 10 hottest on record, underlining a warming trend linked to human emissions of greenhouse gases.
"All the years from 2001 to 2010, except 2008, were in the top ten," he said. The U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization compiles a ranking from all three sources.
The fight against global warming suffered a setback in the wake of the financial crisis, slowing funding for renewable energy projects and knocking momentum from efforts to agree a climate deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2013.
The new data appeared to bolster evidence for man-made climate change, after leaked e-mails, including from the CRU, showed climate scientists in 2009 sniping at skeptics. Errors made by a U.N. climate panel also exaggerated the pace of melt of glaciers in the Himalayas.
Last year was 0.498 degrees Celsius (0.9 Fahrenheit) above the 1961-1990 average, the CRU and Hadley data showed, compared with 1998's 0.517 degree. The nearest year below 2010 was 2005, at 0.474 degree warmer than the long-term average.
Droughts in Russia, China and Argentina, which stoked record food prices, coupled with floods last year in Pakistan and China have underlined the threat from extreme weather.
Some parts of Europe, Russia and the United States suffered a cold 2010, against the global trend.
Last month, a U.N. meeting in Cancun, Mexico, agreed to raise climate aid for poor countries, but failed to convince analysts that the world could agree a binding deal on emissions after the present round of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.
Governments agreed in Cancun to limit average global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but national emissions pledges so far are too weak to meet that target. Temperatures have already risen about 0.8 degrees C.
Energy security fears may more successfully drive investment in low-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels, but environmental investors say evidence of climate change helps.
The 10 warmest years have been since 1998, when temperatures were boosted by a strong El Nino weather event, a natural shift which brings warm waters to the surface of the Pacific Ocean every few years.
The U.S. National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) said last week that 2010 was tied for the hottest year with 2005.
The U.S. and British groups use similar observations but in slightly different ways. For example, GISS takes greater account of Arctic weather stations, where warming has been fastest.
All the warmest years are separated by only a few fractions of a degree.
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)
2010 warmest ever year, says UN weather agency
Peter Capella Yahoo News 20 Jan 11;
GENEVA (AFP) – The UN's World Meteorological Organisation said Thursday that 2010 was the warmest year on record, confirming a "significant" long-term trend of global warming and producing exceptional weather variations.
The trend also helped to melt Arctic sea ice cover to a record low for December last month, the WMO said in a statement.
Last year "ranked as the warmest year on record, together with 2005 and 1998," the WMO added, confirming preliminary findings released at the global climate conference early December that were based on a 10-month period.
"The 2010 data confirm the Earth's significant long-term warming trend," WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said. "The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998."
In 2010, the global average temperature was 0.53 degrees Celsius (0.95 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1961 to 1990 mean that is used as a yardstick for climate measurements, according to the WMO, basing itself on a broad set of US and British-collected data.
That exceeded 2005 levels by 0.01 C (0.02 F) and was 0.02 C (0.05 F) above the 1998 mark, but within a margin of error that made the difference between the three years statistically insignificant, according to the WMO.
"Arctic sea ice cover in December 2010 was the lowest on record" for the month, the WMO also found.
Sea ice around the northern polar region shrank to an average monthly extent of 12 million square kilometres, 1.35 million square kilometres below the 1979 to 2000 December average, according to the UN weather agency.
"There's no good news with respect to that -- the Arctic ice continues to be extremely low," Jarraud told journalists.
Over the past decade, global temperatures have been the highest-ever recorded for a 10-year period since the beginning of instrument-based climate measurements in the mid-19th century.
Last month, even before the year was over, Jarraud confirmed that 2001 to 2010 set a new record as the warmest decade ever.
Recent warming has been especially strong in Africa, parts of Asia, and parts of the Arctic, according to the UN agency.
2010 turned out to be "an exceptionally warm year" in much of Africa and southern and western Asia, as well as in Greenland and Arctic Canada, but there were big variations worldwide.
Northern Europe and Australia were significantly cooler than average, with "abnormally cold" conditions for large parts of western Europe in December, including parts of Scandinavia.
The year was also marked "by a high number of extreme weather events" including Russia's summer heatwave and the devastating monsoon floods in Pakistan.
The agency says that the temperature observations on their own do not pin the cause on man-made greenhouse gases, although it believes this is confirmed separately by other research into carbon emissions in the atmosphere.
Britain's Meteorological Office and the University of East Anglia released provisional global figures on Thursday indicating that 2010 was the "second warmest year on record" with a mean temperature of a 14.5 degrees C.
Meanwhile US institutes including NASA have calculated that 2010 was the equal warmest or warmest in global terms. The WMO's figures were based on data from British and US agencies including the Britain's Met Office.
"Self-proclaimed climate change 'sceptics' may still try to claim that global warming stopped in 1998, but they cannot explain away the fact that nine of the 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 2000," said Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics (LSE).
New Climate Data Shows Warming World: WMO
Stephanie Nebehay PlanetArk 21 Jan 11;
Last year tied for the hottest year on record, confirming a long-term warming trend which will continue unless greenhouse gas emissions are cut, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The first 10 years of the millennium proved to be the hottest decade since records began in the 19th century, it said.
"The main signal is that the warming trend continues and is being strengthened year after year," WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud told a news conference.
"The trend, unfortunately, will continue for a number of years but the amplitude will depend on the amount of greenhouse gases released," the Frenchman added. "It will depend on action taken to minimize the release of greenhouse gases."
Jarraud said the latest data should convince doubters about the growing evidence for man-made climate change. "If they look at it in an unbiased way, it should convince them, or hopefully a few of them, that the skeptical position is untenable."
2010 was also marked by further melting of Arctic ice -- in December its extent was at its lowest on record, the WMO said -- and by extreme weather, including Russia's heatwave and devastating floods in Pakistan.
Rising temperatures, already about 0.8 degree Celsius above pre-industrial times, mean the world will struggle to limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, a target agreed by almost 200 nations at U.N. talks last month in Mexico.
Many experts see 2C as a threshold for dangerous climate change, like more heatwaves, droughts, floods and rising seas.
"We have to act very fast and strongly" to limit emissions, said Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
He noted that many skeptics say global warming has stopped because of no new records since 1998, when temperatures were boosted by a strong El Nino event that warms the Pacific.
"But they cannot explain away the fact that nine of the 10 warmest years have occurred since 2000," he said.
"Data received by the WMO show no statistically significant difference between global temperatures in 2010, 2005 and 1998," the United Nations body, which compiles its ranking from data provided by British and U.S. agencies, said in a statement.
Data from British institutes on Wednesday showed last year was the world's second warmest behind 1998, while the other two main groups tracking global warming, based in the United States, said 2010 was tied for the hottest on record.
Over the 10 years from 2001 to 2010, global temperatures have averaged 0.45 degrees Celsius (0.83 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1961-1990 average and are the highest ever recorded for a 10-year period since climate records began, WMO said.
The difference between the three hottest years was less than the margin of uncertainty in comparing the data, according to WMO, whose assessment is based on climate data from land-based weather and climate stations, ships, buoys and satellites.
The fight against global warming suffered a setback in the wake of the financial crisis, slowing funding for renewable energy projects and knocking momentum from international efforts to agree a climate deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2013.
(Editing by Jonathan Lynn and Janet Lawrence)
