Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Climate Change: Warmest decade on record in 2000-2009

The past ten years have been the warmest in recorded history, according to the UK Meteorological (Met) Office.

The UN climate talks in Copenhagen show despite 1998 being the warmest year on record, the noughties has been the warmest decade evidenced in 160 years.

In a split announcement, the World Meteorological Organisation in Geneva said today that 2009 will be one of the ten warmest individual years recorded. The provisional figure for warming during the year is 0.44C above the long-term average of 14C.

According to the Vicky Pope, head of climate change suggestion at the Met Office, the figures “highlight that the world continues to see global temperatures rise, most of which is due to rising emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and clearly shows that the argument that global warming has stopped is flawed.”

The German research group Germanwatch, showed that Burma, Bangladesh and Honduras were the three countries the majority affected in the past 20 years by extremes of climate.

Also in the top ten were Vietnam, Haiti, Nicaragua, India, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines and China.

Frequency rises

We can not attribute all extremes of weather to climate change but we are already recording an increase in intensity and frequency.

A 2C rise in temperatures is safe for some, but not for the poorest. A 1.5C rise gives a safer world for everyone, but there is a vast difference between the two.

Only 4 developed countries were in the top 20 of countries most prone to weather disaster: U.S. at 18, Spain at 14, Portugal at 14 and the Italy at 12.

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