Temperatures soaring to new highs (OZ)

[jpak]

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/temperatures-soaring-to-new-highs-20100729-10y58.html

NSW had its hottest year last year and Australia its second warmest after 2005, according to the most comprehensive international report into global warming assembled.

The State of the Climate 2009 report, produced by leading climate agencies in the US and Britain, collated evidence through 10 methods to show the world has ''unmistakably'' been warming up for more than 30 years.

Temperatures have been creeping up steadily but almost imperceptibly since the middle of the last century, with the increasing amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere the only plausible culprit, scientists said.

The report was not designed to outline the reasons for global warming, but the head of climate monitoring and attribution at the British Met Office, Peter Stott, said greenhouse gas emissions were the ''glaringly obvious explanation''.