2006 set to be 6th warmest worldwide: UK report
Pastor Dale Morgan
2006 set to be 6th warmest worldwide: UK report*
By Jeremy Lovell
Reuters
Thursday, December 14, 2006; 7:28 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - This year is set to be the sixth warmest worldwide
since records began, stoked by global warming linked to human
activities, the British Meteorological Office and the University of East
Anglia said on Thursday.
As England basks in unseasonably warm December weather two weeks before
the end of the year, the Met Office said data from January to November
made 2006 the warmest on record for central England.
"Worldwide, the provisional figures for 2006 using data from January to
November, place the year as the sixth warmest year" since records began
in the 1850s, the report said.
The previous warmest years were 1998 and 2005, according to the World
Meteorological Organization (WMO). The WMO was due to release its own
2006 figures later on Thursday.
"The top 10 warmest years have all occurred in the last 12 years," it
said, adding that 2006 could have been warmer but for La Nina, a cooling
of parts of the Pacific Ocean.
"The figures support recent research from David Karoly of the University
of Oklahoma and Peter Stott at the Met Office which showed links between
human behavior and the warming trend," said Met Office scientist David
Parker.
Most scientists now agree that world average temperatures may rise by
between two and six degrees Celsius this century due to emissions of
so-called greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels
for power and transport.
They say this would cause polar ice caps to melt and sea levels to rise,
causing floods, famines and violent storms and putting millions of lives
at risk.
CURB WARMING
Former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern said in October that
urgent action on global warming was vital.
He said the cost of curbing greenhouse gas emissions now would be about
one percent of global economic output -- a figure that rises 20-fold if
action is delayed.
In Britain, temperature records have tumbled month by month, it said.
"2006 has been quite extraordinary in terms of the UK temperature, with
several records broken," Parker said.
This year saw the highest average temperature recorded since the Central
England Temperature (CET) series began in 1659.
"The rise above the average is significantly higher than that for the
two hottest years we have experienced," Phil Jones, of the University of
East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, said.
The report said last July had been the warmest on record in Britain with
an average temperature of 19.7 degrees Celsius, and it had been the
warmest April to October period with a mean temperature of 14.6 degrees
Celsius.
The autumn has already been declared the warmest on record with an
average temperature of 12.6 degrees Celsius.
At that rate, 2006 "is very likely to be the warmest year in terms of
CET" the Met Office said.
The joint warmest years currently are 1990 and 1999, which recorded a
mean temperature of 10.63 degrees Celsius.