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<H1>Winter has been world's warmest on record</H1>
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<H4><SPAN>Story Highlights</SPAN></H4>• Temperature for December-February
highest since 1880<BR>• Factors included "long-term trend ... [and] a
moderate El Nino"<BR>• The 10 warmest years on record have occurred since
1995</DIV>
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<P><B>WASHINGTON</B> (Reuters) -- This has been the world's warmest winter
since record-keeping began more than a century ago, the U.S. government
agency that tracks weather reported Thursday.</P>
<P>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the
combined global land and ocean surface temperature from December through
February was at its highest since records began in 1880.</P>
<P>A record-warm January was responsible for pushing up the combined
winter temperature, according to <A
href="http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/s2819.htm"
target=_blank>the agency's Web site</A><IMG class=cnnoffsite height=9
alt="external link" hspace=0
src="http://i.cnn.net/cnn/.element/img/1.3/misc/icon.offsite.gif" width=12
vspace=1 border=0>.</P>
<P>"Contributing factors were the long-term trend toward warmer
temperatures, as well as a moderate El Nino in the Pacific," Jay Lawrimore
of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center said in a telephone interview from
Asheville, North Carolina.</P>
<P>The next-warmest winter on record was in 2004, and the third warmest
winter was in 1998, Lawrimore said.</P>
<P><STRONG><FONT size=4>The 10 warmest years on record have occurred since
1995.</FONT></STRONG></P>
<P>"We don't say this winter is evidence of the influence of greenhouse
gases," Lawrimore said.</P>
<P>However, he noted that his center's work is part of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change process, which released a report
on global warming last month that found climate change is occurring and
that human activities quite likely play a role in the change.</P>
<P>"So we know as a part of that, the conclusions have been reached and
the warming trend is due in part to rises in greenhouse gas emissions,"
Lawrimore said. "By looking at long-term trends and long-term changes, we
are able to better understand natural and anthropogenic [human-caused]
climate change."</P>
<P>The combined temperature for the December-February period was 1.3
degrees F (0.72 degree C) above the 20th century mean, the agency
said.</P>
<P>Lawrimore did not give an absolute temperature for the three-month
period, and said the deviation from the mean was what was important. He
did not provide the 20th century mean temperature.</P>
<P>Temperatures were above average for these months in Europe, Asia,
western Africa, southeastern Brazil and the northeast half of the United
States, with cooler-than-average conditions in parts of Saudi Arabia and
the central United States.</P>
<P>Global temperature on land surface during the Northern Hemisphere
winter was also the warmest on record, while the ocean-surface temperature
tied for second warmest after the winter of 1997-98.</P>
<P>Over the past century, global surface temperatures have increased by
about 0.11 degree F per decade, but the rate of increase has been three
times larger since 1976 -- around 0.32 degree F per decade, with some of
the biggest temperature rises in the high latitudes of the Northern
Hemisphere.</P>
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