2010 among top three warmest years
Baku, December 6 (AZERTAC). The year 2010 is set to be ranked among the top three warmest years since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850, according to the findings released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Thursday at the UN climate change conference in the Caribbean resort of Cancun, Mexico.
According to data sources compiled by WMO, the global combined sea surface and land surface air temperature for 2010 (January-October) is currently estimated at 0.55 degree Celsius (1F) above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14 degrees Celsius (57.2 degrees F)
The data also indicate that January-October 2010 temperatures are near record levels.
The final ranking of 2010 will not become clear until November and December data are analysed in early 2011.
Preliminary operational data from 1-25 November indicate that global temperatures from November 2010 are similar to those observed in November 2005, indicating that global temperatures for 2010 are continuing to track near record levels.
WMO secretary general Michel Jarraud, who released the findings, said at a press conference Thursday that recent warming had been especially strong in Africa, parts of Asia, and parts of the Arctic; the Saharan/Arabian, East African, Central Asian and Greenland/Arctic.
The most extreme warm anomalies is said to have occurred in two major regions, the first extended across most of Canada and Greenland, with mean annual temperatures 3°C or more above normal in parts of west Greenland and the eastern Canadian Arctic and sub-Arctic.
The second covered most of the northern half of Africa and south Asia, extending as far east as the western half of China, with annual temperatures 1 to 3°C above normal over most of the region.
Many parts of both regions had their warmest year on record, including large parts of northern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and southwest Asia (with Turkey and Tunisia having their warmest year on record), as well as much of the Canadian Arctic and coastal Greenland.
Jarraud said many other parts of the world were affected by significant floods during 2010, and that an active wet summer monsoon season in the West African Sahel was accompanied by floods from time to time, with Benin and Niger the countries most severely affected.
In Benin, this caused the worst flooding on record in terms of impact, causing severe losses to the agriculture sector and severe disturbances to public services, including cutting access to health centres, although rainfall amounts themselves were mostly not record-breaking.
The WMO is the United Nations System`s authoritative voice on Weather, Climate and Water.
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