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Environment Canada has quietly released its climate report for 2010, confirming that it was the hottest year on Canadian record books.
Ottawa (17 Jan. 2011) - Environment Canada has confirmed that 2010 was the hottest year on record in Canada.
National temperatures in Canada exceeded average values by a significant 3C – the warmest since record-keeping began in 1948, the national weather agency reports. Globally, 2010 also topped the charts as the hottest year ever.
Global averages have been collected since 1880. The 2010 average surface temperature was 0.62C above the century average. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that when the average global temperature is 2C above that of the previous century the world will have reached dangerous climate tipping points.
Not all of the planet has experienced the increase in the same way. By comparison, Canada's northern territories and northern Quebec were at least 4C above normal, the Canadian report notes. "Snowmaggedon" in Washington, floods in Pakistan and devastating heat waves in Russia last year were all part of the climate chaos associated with rising average surface temperature.
"It's not possible to directly link global warming as the cause of one weather event. But the trend of rising temperatures since 2000 increases the possibility of extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts and floods," says David Easterling, chief of the scientific services division at the U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). "Every year since 2000 has ranked as one of the 15 warmest years on record," he said.
James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, adds, "If the warming trend continues, as is expected, and if greenhouse gases continue to increase, the 2010 record will not stand for long."
His office has also released a report saying that 2010 tied for the warmest year on record with 2005.
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