Last decade equals warmest on record: UN

Thirteen of the warmest years recorded have occurred within the last decade and a half, the United Nations' World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said.

The year 2011 caps a decade that ties the record as the hottest ever measured, the WMO said in its annual report on climate trends and extreme weather events, unveiled at UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa.
"Our science is solid and it proves unequivocally that the world is warming and that this warming is due to human activities," WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud said in a statement, adding policy makers should take note of the findings.
"Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached new highs and are very rapidly approaching levels consistent with a two to 2.4 Celsius rise in average global temperatures."
Scientists believe any rise above the 2.0 threshold could trigger far-reaching and irreversible changes on Earth over land and in the seas.
The 2002-2011 period equals 2001-2010 as the warmest decade since 1850, the report said.
2011 ranks as the 10th warmest year since 1850, when accurate measurements began.
This was true despite a La Nina event - one of the strongest in 60 years - that developed in the tropical Pacific in the second half of 2010 and continued until May 2011.
The report noted that the cyclical climate phenomenon, which strikes every three to seven years, helped drive extreme weather events, including drought in east Africa, islands in the central equatorial Pacific and the southern United States.
It also aggravated flooding in southern Africa, eastern Australia and southern Asia.
While La Nina and its meteorological cousin El Nino are not caused by climate change, rising ocean temperatures caused by global warming may affect their intensity and frequency, scientists say.
Delegates from almost 200 nations have gathered in Durban for the UN Climate Change Conference.
Countries are expected to make a last effort to save the dying Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted in 1997 and entered into force in 2005.
The talks are the last chance to set another round of targets before the first commitment period ends in 2012.
The European Union is willing to sign up for a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol but other signatories, including Russia, Japan and Canada, are not.
The United States - the world's second biggest emitter after China - never ratified the protocol.
Major developing nations with surging economies, such as China and India, were not covered in the first commitment period as they were classified as emerging economies.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-29/past-15-years-warmest3a-un/3702564