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2010 is hottest year on record, NASA says

The Washington Post

CANCUN, Mexico - Even as negotiators worked doggedly Friday to finalize a modest climate accord at United Nations talks, new temperature readings released by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies show that 2010 now ranks as the hottest year on record.

An analysis of the combined land and ocean temperature readings from across the planet between Dec. 1, 2009, and Nov. 30, 2010, indicate that 2010 has surpassed what NASA scientists previously identified as the warmest climate year: 2005.

The findings have done little to change dynamics at the talks, where delegates are struggling to resolve issues ranging from how best to verify each nation's emissions cuts and whether to extend the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 climate pact that covers most industrialized nations but leaves out the world's two largest carbon emitters -- the United States and China.

European negotiators are pushing for language that would make it clear that the current level of emission cuts pledged by industrialized and developing countries will allow global temperatures to rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius -- 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit -- by the year 2100.

According to several analyses, nations' current pledges are insufficient to keep future temperature rise under 2 degrees Celsius. To hit that target, emissions will need to be cut 25 to 50 percent more.

"Of course, all of this is incredibly difficult. It is, in the end, about how we build the society of the future. We are in the middle of a paradigm shift," said Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate action.