2000-2009 warmest: UN agency

Dec. 8: The world’s weatherman tells us that this year had been the fifth warmest since 1850 and the decade has been the hottest on record.
The Geneva-based World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) released its annual data earlier at the UN climate conference which shows that the combined sea and land surface temperature between January and October had been 0.44 degree centigrade above the 30 year average from 1960 to 1990. The worst year was 1998. Temperature records are available from mid 19th century.
Releasing the finding, the secretary-general of WMO, Mr Michel Jarraud said extreme events in the world has increased, pointing to the drought in China, the poor monsoon in India and the extreme droughts in parts of Africa.
He also pointed to the “heat wave” in India. He said the Arctic ice concentration in 2007-08 was the third lowest in history and it showed that global warming is having its effects in all parts of the world.
Mr Jarraud said the WMO depended on three sets of data including, Nasa, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of East Anglia in the UK.
“All the three independent data agree with each other,” he said when asked whether there would be any doubt from data collated at the University of East Anglia because of the scandal doing the rounds on email leakage.
Mr Jarraud also said that information was collected from all the countries organisation and it all pointed to a long-term trend of rising temperatures. He said research was on regarding the intensity of extreme events and it indicated that there would be more category 4 or 5 hurricanes as the air warmed.
He, however, pointed out that temperature rise was not uniform across the world. In the northern parts of the US and Canada, there was a slight dip, but that would be true for any average out of temperatures.
“In some places it would be higher than normal, while in others it would be lower than normal in any given year,” he said, adding though that in the long run, the movement would be upwards.
The colder times would be less and the hotter ones more, “but there would continue to be heat waves and cold waves around the world,” Mr Jarraud stated.
He said 2009 was warmer than the 30-year average in Europe and the West Asia, while China saw the third-warmest year since 1951.