Global Warming, Heat Wave | featured news

The summer heat waves over the past decade that killed thousands of people in Europe, scorched the Russian wheat crop, and sent Greenland's glaciers galloping to the sea are without parallel since at least 1400, according to a new study. The findings are based on a statistical analysis of summer seasonal temperatures inferred from tree rings, ice cores, lake sediments, and instrumental records.

If you thought September felt a bit warmer than usual, you weren't alone. Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said Monday that last month tied a 2005 record for the warmest September on record worldwide. These numbers have been tracked since 1880. September's combined average temperature over land and ocean around the world was 60.21 degrees Fahrenheit -- 1.21 degrees over the 20th century average.

The relentless, weather-gone-crazy type of heat that has blistered the United States and other parts of the world in recent years is so rare that it can't be anything but man-made global warming, says a new statistical analysis from a top government scientist.

Some of the weather extremes bedeviling people around the world have become far more likely because of human-induced global warming, researchers reported on Tuesday. Yet they ruled it out as a cause of last year’s devastating floods in Thailand, one of the most striking weather events of recent years.

If you want a glimpse of some of the worst of global warming, scientists suggest taking a look at U.S. weather in recent weeks. Horrendous wildfires. Oppressive heat waves. Devastating droughts. Flooding from giant deluges. And a powerful freak wind storm called a derecho. These are the kinds of extremes climate scientists have predicted will come with climate change, although it's far too early to say that is the cause. Nor will they say global warming is the reason 3,215 daily high temperature records were set in the month of June.

More hot days? "Virtually certain." Heat waves? "Ninety to 100 percent probability." And as the 21st century unfolds, more heavy precipitation and more intense hurricanes are "likely." The forecast comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a global body of scientists who make periodic pronouncements on global warming and its likely effects.