THE 10 warmest years on record have all been since 1997 because of man-made climate change, scientists revealed today. Global warming has pushed the world's temperature up by more than 0.7C, said the Met Office, as it unveiled figures that show the dramatic effect of human influence on the Earth's climate. In a new report, it says this year will be the tenth warmest worldwide since records began in 1850, with a global mean temperature of 14.3C.
This would have been "exceptionally unusual" just a few years ago, but is now "quite normal," say climate scientists. Dr Peter Stott from the Met Office said: "Human influence, particularly emission of greenhouse gases, has greatly increased the chance of having such warm years. "Comparing observations with the expected response to man-made and natural drivers of climate change it is shown that global temperature is now more than 0.7 degrees centigrade warmer than if humans were not altering the climate."
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change has said a global temperature increase of 1C may be beneficial for some regions, but warned that any greater increases could result in extensive coral bleaching.
It suggests there will be increasing damage with warming of between 1C and 3C, leading to rising sea levels and risks of large scale irreversible system disruption. Today's figures show that in the last eight years alone, the global temperature has risen by 0.2C, compared with the average for the previous decade.
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