Jan 29, 2011

2010: Warmest Year Ever?

The World Meteorological Organization says 2010 could go down as the warmest year since temperature tracking began in 1850.

Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com


Transcript:
As world leaders gather in Cancun, Mexico, for a climate change summit, the World Meteorological Organization says 2010 could go down as the warmest year since temperature tracking began in 1850.

Minnesota’s KMSP has the story.

“U.N. experts say scorching summers in places like Russia and above-average temperatures in Greenland are part of the reason this year is on track to be one of the hottest. The data from the World Meteorological Organization says man-made pollution is trapping heat in the atmosphere.”

ABC News Australia highlights some of 2010’s
other weather extremes.

“Pakistan experienced its worst ever floods, there were severe floods and deadly landslides in China, and Russia and Eurasia suffered through extreme heatwaves. It was also the driest monsoon season in Bangladesh since 1994, the coldest winter for Ireland and Scotland since the 60s and Canada's warmest, driest winter ever.”

A commentator on Houston's Fox affiliate KRIV argues, Earth’s weather has gone up and down throughout history.

BELL: “The climate has been warming and cooling long before man invented smokestacks, SUVs, and carbon-trading scams. ... Let’s look at this a little bit--and it is recent history, as we would say--in a sense that Roman warming period, about 200 B.C. to 600 A.D., was just as warm today; that was before smokestacks and so on.

But a writer for the Christian Science Monitor argues, this is exactly what you’d expect to see in a warming climate.

“[2010’s extreme events] appear to fit long-term patterns the climate models have generally projected for a climate system responding to increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.”

Even if 2010 doesn’t go down as the warmest year on record, the past decade has already been called as the warmest since instrument recording began.


No comments: