WASHINGTON – A massive U.S. study says the world in 2012 sweltered with continued signs of climate change. Rising sea levels, snow melt, heat buildup in the oceans, and melting Arctic sea ice and Greenland ice sheets, all broke or nearly broke records, but temperatures only sneaked into the top 10.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday issued a peer-reviewed 260-page annual check-up on Earth’s climate. The report compiles data already released, but puts them in context of what’s been happening to the planet over decades.
National Climatic Data Center director Tom Karl says all the indicators show a climate that is changing and warming over the decades. He says surface temperatures haven’t risen in the last 10 years, but notes that’s a blip in time due to natural variability.
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