To date, nineteen nations have hit or matched record high temperatures this year, according to Jeff Master’s Wunder Blog, making 2010 the only year to have so many national records. In contrast, no nation this year has hit a record cold temperature.
Over the past decade, which was the warmest on record, 75 nations have seen record highs, whereas 15 have seen record lows.
Nations hitting record highs this year are the Ascension Islands, the Solomon Islands, Finland, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Colombia, Zambia, Cyprus, Myanmar, Chad, Niger, Sudan, Qatar, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan, and most recently Bolivia. If Palestine were nation, the year’s total would be twenty, since it hit an all-time high of 51.4°C (124.5°F).
This year is looking to be among the warmest yet recorded since data keeping began in the lat 19th Century. While the first half of the year was unusually warm worldwide, an expected La Nina phenomenon has recently brought cooler-than-average temperatures to much of the Northern Hemisphere.
Climate experts overwhelmingly conclude that the world is warming due to extensive greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation.
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Summer from hell: seventeen nations hit all-time heat records
(08/09/2010) The summer isn’t over yet, but already seventeen nations have matched or beaten their all-time heat records. According to Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog, Belarus, the Ukraine, Cyprus, Russia, Finland, Qatar, the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Niger, Chad, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan, Colombia, Myanmar, Ascension Island, and the Solomon Islands have all equaled or broken their top temperature records this year. In addition, the hottest temperature ever recorded in Asia was taken in Pakistan at 128 degrees Fahrenheit (53 degrees Celsius); this incredible temperature still has to be reviewed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Officials point to Russian drought and Asian deluge as consistent with climate change
(08/08/2010) Government officials are pointing to the drought and wildfires in Russia, and the floods across Central and East Asia as consistent with climate change predictions. While climatologists say that a single weather event cannot be linked directly to a warming planet, patterns of worsening storms, severer droughts, and disasters brought on by extreme weather are expected as the planet warms.
June was the 304th month in a row above average temperatures
(07/20/2010) Data released from the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Climatic Data Center shows that June 2010 was a record breaker. It was the warmest month of June globally since record-taking began in 1880 and it is the 304th month in a row that has been above the 20th Century average. The last month to fall below the average was February 1985: the month Nelson Mandela, who recently celebrated his 92nd birthday, rejected an offer of freedom from the then apartheid government.
