As officials meet at the 17th UN Climate Summit in Durban, South Africa, the world continues to heat up. The UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has announced that they expect 2011 to be the warmest La Niña year since record keeping began in 1850. The opposite of El Nino, a La Niña event causes general cooling in global temperatures.
"Despite La Niña, it was a very, very warm year to the point that it is the warmest decade on record," explained WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud during a press briefing in Geneva.
Even with the cooling impact of La Niña, this year is on track to becoming the 10th warmest yet. In fact, the 13 warmest years on record have all occurred in the last 15 years with the 2000s being the warmest decade to date. "Our science is solid and it proves unequivocally that the world is warming and that this warming is due to human activities," Jarraud said.
The effects of this heat are being felt far-and-wide. This year saw the Arctic's sea ice hit its lowest volume on record and have its second lowest extent. Ice shelves in Canada have halved in the last six years. Meanwhile, with wider recognition of the impacts of climate change on severe weather, this year was also notable for an unusually large amount of extreme weather events. For example, 2011 saw drought and famine in East Africa, killing over tens-of-thousands of people; massive floods in Asia and the Americas with a record-breaking deluge in Thailand, dubbed its worst natural disaster in history; a wide-variety of extreme weather events in the US, including an extended drought and heatwave in Texas; as well as a below-average year for tropical cyclones.
EDIT
http://news.mongabay.com/2011/1130-hance_lanina_record.html
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
