A Decade of Global Weirding

The first decade of this millennium was marked by unprecedented climate extremes.   That according to a report from the World Meteorological Organization.

The World Meteorological Organization says the planet "experienced unprecedented high-impact climate extremes" in the ten years from 2001 to 2010, the warmest decade since the start of modern measurements in 1850.

Those ten years also continued an extended period of accelerating global warming, with more national temperature records reported broken than in any previous decade. Sea levels rose about twice as fast as the trend in the last century.

The WMO secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, said: "A decade is the minimum possible timeframe for meaningful assessments of climate change.

"WMO's report shows that global warming accelerated in the four decades of 1971 to 2010 and that the decadal rate of increase between 1991-2000 and 2001-2010 was unprecedented."

He added: "Rising concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are changing our climate, with far-reaching implications for our environment and our oceans, which are absorbing both carbon dioxide and heat."

His reference to the oceans' role as a sink for CO2 and heat is significant in the present debate about the apparent slight slow-down in the pace of atmospheric warming and the likelihood that the heat is going into the oceans instead.