2000s warmest decade on record, government reports
WASHINGTON – The 2000-2009 decade was the warmest on record, easily surpassing the previous hottest decade — the 1990s — researchers said Tuesday in a report providing fresh evidence that the planet may be warming at a potentially disastrous rate.
In 2009, global surface temperatures were 1.01 degree above average, which tied the year for the fifth warmest year on record, the National Climatic Data Center said.
And that helped push the 2000-2009 decade to 0.96 degree above normal, which the agency said "shattered" the 1990s record value of 0.65 degree above normal.
Last year's climate milestones included:
• The 10th consecutive summer with above-normal temperatures in the U.S. Northwest.
• Record winter drought in Texas.
• The deadliest February tornado in Oklahoma history.
• The largest wildfire in Los Angeles County history.
• Most active tornado season in a decade in Louisiana and Alabama.
• New seasonal snowfall records for Spokane, Wash., and International Falls, Minn.
• Worst deluge in decades in northern Brazil, affecting 186,000 people.
• Heavy rainfall in northern Argentina, causing a landslide affecting 20,000 people.
• Disastrous floods triggered by heavy rain in Central Europe.
• Britain's heaviest snowstorm since 1991.
• Extratropical storm Klaus (similar to a category 3 hurricane) kills 30 in France and Spain.
• Heaviest snowfall in northern China in 55 years.
• Typhoons batter the Philippines causing fatal flooding.
• More than 600 die in the deadliest typhoon to hit Taiwan in five decades.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100119/...i_warm_weather


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