When the snow is falling down around you in quantities unprecedented in memory, it can be hard to believe in global warming. Across Europe and the US last year, people did see prodigious snowstorms. On the other hand, people in Russia experienced a record-shattering heatwave. Sandwiched in the middle, people in Pakistan were inundated with floods evocative of the apocryphal Apocalypse. Macbeth may have cried ?Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble,? such was the disorder observed in the world’s weather phenomena. But data released by two US agencies, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, explains it all. There is no mystery, global warming is on the march, which suggests that weather anomalies like severe winters and scorching summers will continue to haunt the world with increasingly regularity.
Not only did 2010 tie with 2005 as the warmest year on record, it also marked the 34th consecutive year in which global temperatures have been above the 20 th century average. Anyone who was tempted to (implausibly) call this a coincidence would have to explain away the link with the fact that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere last year was also at its highest in at least 800,000 years, and around 40% higher as compared to pre-industrial times. Further, 2010 stands out as the wettest year on record. Again, a warmer atmosphere tends to hold more precipitation.
