The average global temperature this year is the fourth-highest since 1861, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization reported.
Nine of the 10 hottest years on record occurred since 1995, and the last four years were among the five hottest. Only 1861, when reliable data was first collected, was hotter than 1998.
Research by the WMO, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and others shows such warming will lead to more intense hurricanes, rising sea levels that will swamp low-lying coastal areas and heat waves that are longer and more frequent.
"Temperatures are warming, and they've been warming over the past century," Jay Lawrimore, head of the climate-monitoring branch at National Climatic Data Center, told USA Today. "There's pretty much a consensus that there will be continued warming over the next century."
The planet warmed at a rate of roughly 1 degree per century from 1900 to 1975, Lawrimore said, but accelerated to 3 degrees per century in the past 25 to 30 years.
© Copyright 2004 by United Press International
