WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department is ordering nonessential U.S. diplomats and the families of all American Embassy personnel to leave Egypt after the Egyptian military removed Morsi and in anticipation of potential violence, a U.S. official said.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to discuss it publicly, said the State Department had placed the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on “ordered departure” status for nonemergency staff and dependents all employees. That means that those covered by the order are required to leave the country. It was not immediately clear if an evacuation operation would be mounted or if those departing would use commercial airlines or passenger ships to leave.
Also Wednesday, a U.S.-based international education and training organization said it’s evacuating 18 Arabic language program students from Egypt to Morocco. Armine Poghikyan, of the nonprofit American Councils for International Education in Washington, D.C., said participants in the Arabic Overseas Flagship Program arrived June 21 at Alexandria University for what was to be one year of studies. Officials decided the program needed to move to Moulay Ismail University in Meknes, Morocco, and the students will leave that country by the end of the week.
Eight other University of Michigan students also will be evacuated from The American University in Cairo, University of Michigan officials announced Wednesday afternoon. The seven undergraduate students and one graduate student are expected to leave the city Thursday and ultimately return to the United States.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
It doesn’t get any more polarizing than God and the Devil.
As tensions over the abortion debate intensified at the Texas state legislature Tuesday, a religious-themed face-off took place in the form of a handful of hell-raising pro-choicers shouting “hail Satan” as pro-lifers swayed and sang “Amazing Grace.”
The scratchy video footage was quickly disseminated across conservative, anti-abortion websites — handy ammunition against pro-choicers who’ve been celebrating Democratic state senator Wendy Davis’ 13-hour filibuster last week that blocked a bill that would effectively ban abortions state-wide.
“It’s taken us all day to get a video recording,” wrote the bloggers at Cahnman’s Musings. “For the record: They’ve been doing this all day, this is just the first time we caught it on video.”
The Twitchy amassed evidence in the form of tweets from pro-lifers in attendance reporting the devil trying to infiltrate their circle.
Of course, there were also tweets from media covering the protests and the debate over the abortion bill, ongoing in the legislature.
Pro-lifers were also outraged by a photo of a woman attending the protest with what appears to be her children, holding up signs that read “If I Wanted the Government in my Womb, I Would F*** a senator.”
Two of the other children in the photo held signs that read “Every Child a Wanted Child.”
The expletive-laced phrase was apparently coined by Oklahoma District 11 State Senator Judy Eason McIntyre, who hoisted a sign with the statement at a protest outside her state’s legislature in February of last year.
On Monday, thousands of protesters stood in the Texas state Capitol to protest the Senate House Bill, which was passed late Tuesday night after Governor Rick Perry called an emergency session. The Dallas News and Salon created snapshots of the many different (and creative) signs.
“Texas may be open for business, but MY business is NOT open for Texas,” read one on the pro-choice side.
“I’m Human! Why is it legal to kill me?” read a pro-life man’s shirt.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A teetering Portuguese government has underlined the threat that the euro zone debt crisis, in hibernation for almost a year, may be about to reawaken.
From Greece to Cyprus, Slovenia to Spain and Italy, and now most pressingly Portugal, where the finance and foreign ministers resigned in the space of two days, a host of problems is stirring after 10 months of relative calm imposed by the European Central Bank.
Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho told the nation in an address late on Tuesday that he did not accept the foreign minister's resignation and would try to go on governing.
If his government does end up collapsing, as is now more likely, it will raise immediate questions about Lisbon's ability to meet the terms of the 78-billion-euro bailout it agreed with the EU and International Monetary Fund in 2011.
Portugal had been held up as an example of a bailout country doing all the right things to get its economy back in shape. That reputation is now harder to sustain and even before this latest crisis, the International Monetary Fund reported last month that Lisbon's debt position was "very fragile".
Coming soon after the near-collapse of the Greek government, which has been given until Monday to show it can meet the demands of its own EU-IMF bailout, the euro zone may be on the brink of falling back into full-on crisis.
EU officials have been at pains to talk down any unrest, buoyed by the tranquility in financial markets since European Central Bank President Mario Draghi made good on his pledge last summer to do whatever it takes to protect the euro via a bond-buying program.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has spoken of the worst of the crisis being over, and the economic affairs commissioner, Olli Rehn, has often dismissed "doomsayers" who once predicted the euro would collapse.
But despite the desire to project calm, EU officials quietly acknowledge that all is not well and that any number of problems could throw the region back into turmoil.
"There are always issues simmering under the surface," said an EU diplomat who has been dealing first hand with the crisis since it erupted in Greece in early 2010.
"It's far from over. The immediacy may have ebbed away, but I think we're all aware that under the surface, there's still a lot of stuff than can come back to bite us."
During a meeting of finance officials from the 17 euro countries on Tuesday, there was agreement that the "optimism in the euro zone is not justified, that we are in worse shape than it seems," according to one source at the meeting.
The situation in Portugal was a particular concern, said JP Morgan economist Alex White.
"The announcement this afternoon that Paulo Portas, the foreign minister, has resigned significantly escalates our near-term concerns," he said in a note to clients. "At the moment risks appear elevated."
All that is coming against a backdrop of rising euro zone borrowing costs once again after the U.S. Federal Reserve's announcement of an exit strategy from its money-printing program put world markets back into a spin.
Portuguese 10-year bond yields spiked up to eight percent on Wednesday with reports of further ministerial resignations throwing the coalition government's future into peril.
Portas has to decide whether to stay in his post or pull his rightist CDS-PP party out of the coalition, robbing the government of its majority.
Greece, which has resumed talks with its EU and IMF lenders, is every bit as alarming.
A privatization process, which was supposed to help cut into Greece's debt mountain down, has stalled and progress on public sector reform is faltering.
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has ruled out a fresh round of cuts, his government is seeking to lower its privatization revenue target after failing to sell its natural gas operation and there is a 1 billion euros black hole in the state-run health insurer, so its lenders may demand measures to fill that.
There are some suggestions that the EU and IMF may refuse to pay at least some of the 8.1 billion euros bailout tranche on offer and dribble it out instead in order to focus minds in Athens. Anything more dramatic would be risky since Greece faces big bond redemptions next month and nobody wants a default.
With German elections looming in September, Angela Merkel's government is determined not to rock the boat beforehand. CRISIS AWAKENS FROM SLUMBER
Spain and Italy, two far larger economies, also major risks, as do banking sector problems in Slovenia, slow reforms in Cyprus and a scandal in Ireland that has shaken confidence.
In a note to clients late last month, Italy's Mediobanca warned that the country would "inevitably end up in an EU bailout request" in the next six months unless borrowing costs could be kept low and the economy found some traction.
Prime Minister Enrico Letta, in office only since April, faces instability in his coalition, with former prime minister Mario Monti threatening to withdraw support because of the slow pace of desperately needed economic reforms.
While Spain may have avoided a full bailout so far, its banks – which received 40 billion euros from the euro zone rescue fund in 2012 – face a long road to rehabilitation, as do those in Ireland. The IMF praised both countries for their efforts last month, but also warned of risks ahead.
"There are so many negatives outside of Greece as well. On the rest of them, we just want them postponed until after the summer," said one senior euro zone source.
In Ireland, which has performed best of the rescued countries and is expected to emerge from its assistance program later this year, the problems are more of reputation than implementation.
Transcripts of telephone conversations from 2008 have revealed how bankers at Anglo Irish Bank made light of the Irish government's decision to guarantee their liabilities, a move that ultimately saddled the nation with vast debts.
The bankers also ridiculed Germany – the chief underwriter of all the rescue loans in Europe – singing "Deutschland ueber alles" on the tapes, which has infuriated German officials, the very people the Irish government needs to keep happy.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble described the bankers as contemptuous.
While Ireland's problems are likely to blow over, those in Portugal, Greece and Cyprus, which also has tough bailout conditions to meet, are clear and present, and those in Italy and Spain show few signs of disappearing.
EU institutions effectively shut down in August. but that might not prevent a restless summer as the slumbering crisis reawakens agitated.
(Additional reporting by Annika Breidthardt, editing by Mike Peacock)
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Microsoft Research Asia has been working on creating software called MoodScope that notes how a user uses his or her phone, and then uses that information to guess that user's mood. Initial testing of the device has shown it to be 66 percent accurate; when tailored to an individual user, the team reports that the accuracy rate jumped to 93 percent. The research team includes Nicholas Lane and Robert LiKamWa of Rice University, and Lin Zhong and Yunxin Liu from Microsoft Research Asia. They built a prototype and posted their test study results on Microsoft's website.
Most people realize that their smartphone has a lot of embedded technology in it that interacts with the world at large—GPS hardware, accelerometers, etc. all monitor activity and use that data to provide useful functions, such as automatically switching from landscape to portrait mode when a phone is rotated. In this new effort, the researchers sought to discover whether software that monitors phone activities could reveal the users' moods.
To find out, the team wrote code that monitored email, texting, app usage, phone calls, location information, and browsing history, then added algorithms to guess mood based on that data. Next, they enlisted the assistance of 32 volunteers to help them test the accuracy of their code. The volunteers were asked to use the system for two months while also completing mood assessments to provide data for comparison. With no training or tweaking, the software was found to provide answers of happy, tense, calm, upset, excited, stressed, or bored that matched the actual mood reported by the volunteers, on average 66 percent of the time. After optimizing the system for the individual habits of each of the volunteers, the rate increased to 93 percent.
The researchers suggest third party hooks could be added to the software to allow for automatically transmitting user moods to applications like Facebook. They also acknowledge that privacy concerns could arise if the software were to be delivered to the public, but suggest the benefits of such software would likely outweigh such concerns. They note that sites like Netflix or Spotify could use data from MoodScope to offer movies or other content based on specific users' moods.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Qatari man who was transferred to UK by air ambulance last September had Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus
A man infected with a Sars-like respiratory illness has died in London, officials say.
The Qatari man, who was being treated in an intensive care unit at St Thomas's hospital in central London, had contracted the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus – or Mers-CoV.
Hospital officials said the man, who was 49 when he was admitted, died after his condition deteriorated.
The patient, who was suffering from acute respiratory syndrome and renal failure, was admitted to an intensive care unit in Doha, Qatar, on 7 September last year. The man, who has not been named by officials, was transferred to the UK by air ambulance on 11 September. Before he became ill he had travelled to Saudi Arabia, officials said.
Despite doctors' efforts to keep him alive, including connecting him to an artificial lung, he died on Friday last week.
A hospital spokeswoman said: "Guy's and St Thomas's can confirm that the patient with severe respiratory illness due to novel coronavirus … sadly died on Friday 28 June, after his condition deteriorated despite every effort and full supportive treatment."
In May, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said Mers-CoV was a "threat to the entire world" and experts have raised concerns that the disease is "emerging faster than our understanding".
Latest figures from the WHO, published before the latest UK death, show that since September last year there have been 77 laboratory confirmed cases across nine countries, which have resulted in 40 deaths.
British health officials have been advised to be vigilant for severe unexplained respiratory illness in anyone who has recently travelled in the Middle East, as well as any unexplained clusters of such illness.
Coronaviruses cause most common colds but can also cause Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome). In 2003, hundreds of people died after a Sars outbreak in Asia.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
The man who will shepherd Egypt from four days of tumultuous political protests into its highly uncertain future is a little-known judge described by a colleague as fair, reserved and committed to cooperation.
Adly Mansour, 67, who was chairman of the Supreme Constitutional Court before he was hurried into office Thursday, used his first moments as interim president to cast himself as a servant of the people who is interested in building an inclusive government.
He spoke admiringly of the enormous crowds that had gathered in Tahrir Square in Cairo to demand the ouster of his predecessor, Mohammed Morsi, and said he hoped they would continue “flying the flag of this revolution.”
“We look forward to hold presidential and parliamentary elections based on a genuine people’s will,” Mansour said. He told journalists later that everyone, including the Morsi-allied Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement, was invited to participate.
Mohammed Hamed El Gamal, the former head of the State Council judicial body, told Al Shabab, an offshoot of the state-run newspaper, that Mansour is cooperative and understanding.
“I am certain that he will respect the will of the Egyptian people,” he said.
Nathan J. Brown, a professor of international affairs at George Washington University, described him in the journal Foreign Affairs as “genial but unknown,” apparently with the authority to “design the interim constitutional order however he sees fit.”
“The military has promised to consult everyone but has laid out only the vaguest mechanisms for doing so,” he wrote.
Mansour was actually appointed to the constitutional court by Hosni Mubarak, the autocrat who ruled Egypt for almost 30 years before he was ousted in 2011 in the earliest days of the Arab Spring movement.
He was elevated to chief justice only last week by Morsi, who was democratically elected last summer and spent only a year in office before Egyptians, frustrated by what they saw as ineffectual leadership and an allegiance to Islamists, forced him out.
Mansour has a deep grounding in the law. He studied at the respected Cairo University and graduated in 1967. He also studied in Paris and served as a legal adviser to the Saudi Arabian trade minister for most of the 1980s.
He became a judge in 1984 and deputy head of the constitutional court in 1992, a position he held for more than two decades before he was given the top job just earlier this week.
Now he will lead Egypt through a time of upheaval. Though he promised fresh elections, he did not give a date. He said that Egypt must stop producing “tyrants” and worship only God, not its presidents.
Mansour was welcomed Thursday by Arab states — notably including Qatar, which provided billions of dollars of loans and grants to Egypt under Morsi and which supported the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Qatar News Agency reported that the Qatari emir had sent a cable of congratulations to Mansour and praised the army’s role in safeguarding the national security of Egypt.
Mansour, in his remarks, also praised the Egyptian media, which some Egyptians believed Morsi had tried to squelch.
The new president described the media as a “courageous free beacon that lit the way for the people and unveiled the misdeeds of the former regime,” according to the news channel Al Arabiya.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration has replied to a request for rehearing of a case involving a Christian homeschooling family seeking asylum in the United States, asserting that the couple has not been able to prove that they have been persecuted by being forced to send their children to public school.
As previously reported, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the United States Department of Justice to respond to a rehearing request filed by attorneys for Uwe and Hannelore Romeike last month. The court had previously ruled against the Romeike family, opining that the requirement that their children be sent to public school in their homeland of Germany under penalty of law — and at the risk of losing their children — is not tantamount to persecution.
“[T]he Romeikes [have] not shown that Germany’s enforcement of its general school-attendance law amounts to persecution against them, whether on grounds of religion or membership in a recognized social group,” the court stated. “There is a difference between the persecution of a discrete group and the prosecution of those who violate a generally applicable law.”
The Romeike family fled to the United States in 2008 after German authorities demanded that they stop homeschooling their six children. Homeschooling was made illegal in the country in 1938 under the dictatorship of Adolph Hitler, and the law has never been repealed, but rather strengthened. In 2007, the German Supreme Court ruled that the country’s mandate that children be sent to public school is necessary to “counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies.”
German officials have been cracking down on families that keep their sons and daughters at home, and have threatened them with fines, imprisonment and even the removal of the children from the household. The Romeike children were taken from their parents for a time before fleeing to the United States for refuge.
In 2010, Memphis immigration judge Lawrence Burman granted the family asylum, stating that he believed the Romeike’s would face persecution for their faith if they returned to Germany. However, the Department of Justice later appealed the ruling to the Sixth Circuit, which overturned Burman’s decision.
In court documents filed last week by the Department of Justice, the Obama administration asserted that the requirement that German children be sent to public school is valid as the government seeks to create an “open, pluralistic society.” It asserted that German officials are not persecuting the family by mandating attendance since the law applies to all citizens, regardless of their religion.
“Teaching tolerance to children of all backgrounds helps to develop the ability to interact as a fully functioning citizen of Germany,” wrote Senior Litigation Counsel Robert N. Markle. “Along with other evidence that Germany punishes all parents who fail to comply with the law, regardless of all the reasons the parents may provide for failing to comply, substantial evidence exists to support the Board’s determination that Germany has no persecutory motive against religious minorities when enforcing the compulsory-attendance statute.”
He then requested that the court deny the Romeike’s request for rehearing of their case, essentially contending that the family should be deported.
However, Michael Farris, president of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), which has been representing the Romeike family in the courts, wrote in a news release this week that it is antithetical to the principles of American liberty to assert that social tolerance trumps the right to homeschool.
“Attorney General Holder is trying to seek dismissal of this case because he believes that targeting specific groups in the name of tolerance is within the normal legitimate functions of government,” Farris said. “This cannot be the ultimate position of the United States without denying the essence of our commitment to liberty.”
“We’re trying to provide a home for this family who would otherwise go back to facing fines, jail time, and forcible removal of their children because of their religious convictions about how their children should be educated,” he added. “Why Attorney General Holder thinks that it is appropriate for any country to do this to a family simply for homeschooling is beyond me.”
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals will decide in the days ahead whether to rehear the case before a full panel, or force the matter to be sent to the United States Supreme Court.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Franklin Graham, the CEO of international relief group Samaritan's Purse, told Americans celebrating the Fourth of July that now is the time to pray for all the soldiers who have fought and died for freedom, but also to remember that Christ died for the greatest freedom of all.
"The freedoms we now enjoy pale in comparison to the freedom we have as Christians, purchased by Christ's death on the cross," Graham wrote on the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association website, and quoted from Romans 8:1-2 NIV, which reads: "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death."
The son of renowned evangelist Billy Graham said that it is important to remember all those who gave their lives for America, and pray for the country as a whole. "We should also pray for our national leaders. Regardless of whether we agree with our country's policies, we have a biblical mandate to do this," Graham wrote.
"The Apostle Paul – who knew what it was like to lose his freedom – wrote to Timothy, 'I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior' (1 Timothy 2:1-3, NIV)," he continued.
The evangelist also called for prayers for all government officials to seek "God's wisdom and guidance."
This Fourth of July, many Americans will be remembering the 19 firefighters who perished on Sunday while battling intense wildfires in Arizona. As it often does during natural disasters that hit America, the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team sent out chaplains to the community in Prescott, Ariz.., to console families grieving the loss of the elite "hotshot" team.
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"Jesus Himself said, 'Greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends," said Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz..), who described the 19 men as "living demonstrations of love and heroism."
"My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the firefighters killed yesterday, as well as with the 200-plus families who now find themselves without a home."
Graham concluded his message by asking people to pray that God "will continue to use BGEA mightily in introducing others to the glorious liberty of Christ."
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — At least six U.S. airlines canceled 47 flights into and out of the Mexico City and Toluca airports Thursday after the Popocatepetl volcano spewed ash, steam and glowing rocks, airport officials said.
Mexico City airport spokesman Jorge Gomez said U.S. Airways, Delta, United, American and Alaska Airlines canceled the flights as a precaution. But he said the airport otherwise continues to operate normally and that by Thursday afternoon no ash had reached the area, about 40 miles (70 kilometers) northwest from the volcano.
Gomez said that among the routes affected by the cancelations were flights to Houston, Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, Chicago and Los Angeles.
At nearby Toluca airport, Spirit Airlines canceled flights from Dallas and Fort Lauderdale, said spokesman Alejandro Munoz.
The airport, about 35 miles (60 kilometers) from Mexico City, also continued to operate normally, Munoz said.
While there was no volcanic ash falling near the Mexico City airport, residents in the capital's southern neighborhoods reported seeing a light coating on their cars and homes.
Mexico City civil protection secretary Fausto Lugo said the main risk for the metropolis is people not knowing how to handle ash and how to protect potable water from getting contaminated.
"If there is an eruption, we wouldn't evacuate Mexico City," Lugo said. "For us the main risk is the handling of volcanic ashes."
Authorities registered several tremors Thursday at the 17,886-foot (5,450-meter) volcano, which has been spraying a fountain of hot rock and ash for the last 24 hours.
Federal civil protection authorities established a 7-mile (12-kilometer) safety radius around the Popocatepetl, which means no one can enter that area. They also are ensuring that no cars transit through the Paseo de Cortes, a mountain pass between the Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl volcanoes.
An iconic backdrop to Mexico City's skyline on clear days, Popocatepetl sits roughly halfway between Mexico City and the city of Puebla.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
The Earth experienced unprecedented recorded climate extremes during the decade 2001-2010, according to the World Meteorological Organisation.
Its new report says more national temperature records were reported broken than in previous decades.
There was an increase in deaths from heatwaves over that decade.
This was particularly pronounced during the extreme summers in Europe in 2003 and in the Russian Federation during 2010.
But despite the decade being the second wettest since 1901 (with 2010 the wettest year recorded) fewer people died from floods than in the previous decade.
Better warning systems and increased preparedness take much of the credit for the reduced deaths. The WMO says smarter climate information will be needed as the climate continues to change.
Its report, The Global Climate 2001-2010, A Decade of Climate Extremes, analysed global and regional trends, as well as extreme events such as Hurricane Katrina, floods in Pakistan and droughts in the Amazon, Australia and East Africa.
The decade was the warmest for both hemispheres and for both land and ocean surface temperatures. The record warmth was accompanied by a rapid decline in Arctic sea ice, and accelerating loss of mass from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and from glaciers.
Global mean sea levels rose about 3mm per year – about double the observed 20th century trend of 1.6mm per year. Global sea level averaged over the decade was about 20cm higher than in 1880.
The report notes that the high temperatures in the decade were achieved without a strong episode of the El Nino current which typically warms the world. It says that a strong El Nino episode would probably have driven temperatures even higher.
Although overall temperature rise has slowed down since the 1990s, the WMO says temperatures are still rising because of greenhouse gases from human society.
The WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said: “Natural climate variability, caused in part by interactions between our atmosphere and oceans means that some years are cooler than others. On an annual basis, the global temperature curve is not a smooth one. On a long-term basis the underlying trend is clearly in an upward direction, more so in recent times.”
But climate change doubters emphasise the lack of movement in temperatures throughout the decade.
Judah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER), told BBC News that the issue hinged on the time frame.
“For longer periods (two decades or longer) we found a robust and a statistically significant warming trend,” he said. For shorter periods – a decade or less – there is no longer a significant temperature trend of either sign, consistent with the reports of a recent 'plateauing' of global temperatures.”
Even so, many climate scientists are alarmed by the consistently high temperatures during the decade. Every year of the decade except 2008 was among the 10 warmest on record.
The warmest year ever recorded was 2010, with a temperature estimated at 0.54C above the 14.0C long-term average of 1961-1990 base period, followed closely by 2005.
Greenland recorded the largest decadal temperature anomaly, +1.71C above the long-term average and with a temperature in 2010 of +3.2C above average. Africa experienced warmer than normal conditions in every year of the decade.
Results from WMO’s survey showed that nearly 94% of reporting countries had their warmest decade in 2001-2010. No country reported a nationwide average decadal temperature cooler than the long term average.
Scientists say there may be a connection between increasing global temperatures and extreme weather. The WMO says so far there's no conclusive evidence of a link to any single weather event, except perhaps in the case of the European heatwaves of 2003. But this field of research is very active.
Prof Myles Allen from the University of Oxford told BBC News: "We predicted the temperature of this decade using a conventional detection and attribution analysis and data to 1996 (when lots of people were arguing there wasn't even a discernible human influence on global climate), and nailed it to within a couple of hundredths of a degree.
"There were plenty of solar enthusiasts back in the 1990s who were attributing the observed warming since the 1970s to a brightening sun – which didn't really work out when we moved into an extreme solar minimum and still saw the warmest decade on record.
He added: "It's only a single data point (and no-one predicted the shorter-timescale lack-of-trend we have seen since 2000) but it's still worth noting. Let's see what the next decade will bring."
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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