http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1218-01.htm
Published on Wednesday,
December 18, 2002 by Reuters
2002 Second Hottest Year as Global Warming
Speeds
by Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA - This year has been the second warmest since 1860,
extending a quarter-century pattern of accelerated global
warming linked to greenhouse gas emissions, United Nations
scientists said on Tuesday.
The
World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a United Nations
agency, said that 1998 remained the hottest year on record,
with 2002 surpassing last year as the next warmest.
The 10 warmest years had all occurred since 1987,
nine since 1990.
"Clearly
for the past 25 or 26 years, the warming is
accelerating...The rate of increase is unprecedented
in the last 1,000 years," Kenneth Davidson, director
of WMO's world climate program told a news briefing.
A moderate El Nino
system warming the tropical Pacific
since mid-year was expected to last through April,
according to WMO.
While El Nino is smaller
in magnitude than the 1997-98 event,
which caused $34 billion in damage, it has coincided with
"climate anomalies" including droughts in Australia
and
southern Africa, as well as warmer conditions across Asia,
it added.
WMO scientists were
presenting a report on the status
of the global climate in 2002, based on observations
through November from a network of land-based weather
stations, ships and buoys.
Global
surface temperatures have risen six-tenths of a
degree Celsius since 1900, according to the Geneva-based
body.
Scientists say the
world needs to slash emissions of
carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases which
trap heat in the atmosphere if it is to avoid disastrous
floods, droughts and a rise in sea levels in coming decades.
Davidson called greenhouses
gases "the major influence
affecting the climate".
Hong Yan, WMO assistant
secretary-general, went further:
"If no very effective measures are taken for preventing
further release of greenhouse gases, then the trend
will continue."
The United States,
the largest producer of greenhouse
gases, has rejected the Kyoto treaty which aims to cut
emissions from developed countries by 2012 to 5.2 percent
below 1990 levels.
The El Nino phenomenon,
from the Spanish term for a boy child,
is the warming of the central and eastern tropical Pacific,
the world's largest ocean basin, every few years.
It can wreak havoc
on weather patterns, but no two El Nino
events are identical, scientists say.
"The drought in
Southern Africa appears very strongly
linked to El Nino. The drought in Ethiopia appears not
to be," said Paul Llanso, head of WMO's climate data and
monitoring division.
U.S. forecasters said
last week that El Nino would bring
a milder winter to the northern half of the United States
while pounding parts of the south and east with more storms.
© 2002 Reuters
Ltd
###
