Getting Warmer

The noughties has been the hottest decade since records began 160 years ago according to the UN World Meteorological Organization – with 2009 ranking as the warmest year. ” ‘Despite 1998 being the warmest individual year, the last 10 years have clearly been the warmest period in the 160-year record of global surface temperature maintained jointly by the Met Office Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia,’ the statement from the U.K.’s national weather service said. Figures show a steady rise in temperatures over the past four decades, with 2009 listed as likely to be the fifth warmest year since 1850. The U.K. data are derived from a rolling average of 10 years in the 2000 to 2009 period. In the last decade we have seen that the temperatures haven’t gone up very much, but they are clearly a lot warmer then they were in the previous decade,’ said Doctor Vicky Pope, the head of climate change advice at the Met office.”