Every year since 1990, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released an annual report detailing the state of the climate. Early versions were typewritten and authored by a handful of experts. The new version is a shiny, 218-page PDF penned by more than 300 scientists from around the world. Nevertheless, the message has changed little over the years: the world is warming.
The 2009 report continues to document a number of weather-related records, the number of which seem to be growing every year. This year's highlights: The hottest decade on record. The third-lowest Arctic sea ice extent since 1979. The warmest and second-warmest years on record for India and Australia, respectively. And carbon dioxide concentrations that are increasing at a rate well above average.
Also notable in the 2009 report is the amount of space dedicated to explaining the methods and data behind the sections on climate change. A two-page sidebar in the chapter on global surface temperatures (“How we know the world has warmed?” in chapter two
) details three major climate models for the layperson. The authors even constructed interactive figures—complete with links to the original data—so anyone can probe the data for themselves.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/07/the-state-of-the-climate-warming-with-no-sign-of-waning.ars
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