2001-2010, A Decade of Climate Extremes | Royal Meteorological ...

The World Meteorological Organization has issued a report on the first decade of the century - 2001-2010. It was the warmest decade since recent records began in 1850. More national temperature records were reported as broken in this period than in any other decade and sea levels rose at about double the rate of the trend in the last century.

The report, entitled The Global Climate 2001-2010, A Decade of Climate Extremes, examines both local and global weather and climate. It includes extreme weather such as heat-waves, tropical cyclones and droughts and flooding.

According to the report the ten years between 2001 and 2010 were the warmest for both and and sea surface temperatures in both hemispheres. Glaciers, the Antarctic ice sheets and ice in places like Greenland and the Arctic is declining rapidly and this, alongside an expansion in sea volume due to heat, has caused global mean sea levels to rise about 3mm annually, which is twice as much as the trend in the 20th century. In fact sea levels globally were about 20cm higher than in 1880 according to the report.

In addition 44% of countries in the survey reported nationwide hottest temperature records in 2001-2010, compared to 24% in 1991-2000.? Coldest daily minimum temperature absolute records showed an opposite pattern:? In 1961-1970, nearly 32 % of the countries reported nationwide lowest minimum temperature values. The percentage decreased to 11% in 2001-2010.

More than 37,000 people died during the decade as a result of extreme weather and climate conditions, such as heat, drought and cold according to figures from the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. This was 20% higher than the previous decade. However there was a decline in deaths from storms and floods, due to better methods of prediction and to early warning systems.

It is difficult to assign these changes to any one cause and a lot of research has been done throughout the world on this subject. However, scientists increasingly conclude that the likelihood of many extreme events occuring is substantially increased by global rising temperatures. The WMO report addresses this and says that it is therefore important to develop research in order to strengthen climate science and improve climate sciences. This will help society to adapt to climate change.

Decadal global combined surface-air temperature over land and sea-surface temperature (?C) obtained from the average over the three independent datasets maintained by the HadCRU, NOAA-NCDC and NASA-GISS.The Horizontal grey line indicates the long term average value ( 14?C). Image courtesy WMO

Source: http://www.rmets.org/2001-2010-decade-climate-extremes

matt groening brandon phillips summerfest summerfest fidel castro rick santorum ozzie guillen castro comments