Last decade is the warmest on record, alarmist scientists say - Telegraph

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 over 0.7 degrees C warmer than if humans were not altering the climate."

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change have said that a global temperature increase of 1.8F (1C) may be beneficial for some regions, but warned that any more could result in extensive coral bleaching.

They suggest increasing damage if global warming warms between 1.8F (1C) and 5.4F (3C), with 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 0.36F (0.2C), compared to the average for the previous decade.

They confirm the past decade was the warmest ever recorded. In addition the ten warmest years on record have all occurred in the eleven years since 1997. The warmest, in 2005 was an average of 59F (14.8C).

This year's average global temperature of 58F (14.3C) was 0.56F (0.31C) above the 1961-90 average.

Dr Stott said: "As a result of climate change, what would once have been an exceptionally unusual year has now become quite normal. Without human influence on climate change we would be more than 50 times less likely of seeing a year as warm as 2008."

Note that absolutely massive disconnect between the claims above and the US data below (August 2007)

Four of the top 10 are now from the 1930s: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939, while only 3 of the top 10 are from the last 10 years (1998, 2006, 1999). Several years (2000, 2002, 2003, 2004) fell well down the leaderboard, behind even 1900...