US Edition 
Flood warnings: hottest year confirms global warming say experts
Last year was the joint warmest on record, according to new figures from Nasa, that experts say confirm the case for man made climate change.
The two most respected national weather services in the US, Nasa and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), agreed that 2010 tied with 2005 as the hottest since records began in 1880.
Overall 2010 and 2005 were 1.12F (0.62C) above the 20th century average when taking a combination of land and water surface temperatures across the world.
This is despite less solar activity and the onset of La Nina, an irregular cycle that brings cooler temperatures to the Pacific Ocean
James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), said increasing levels of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution are causing the global temperatures to rise.
He pointed out that the Earth’s temperature has been above average for 34 consecutive years.
"If the warming trend continues, as is expected, if greenhouse gases continue to increase, the 2010 record will not stand for long," he warned.
Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics, said the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 390 parts per million, its highest level for at least 800,000 years and almost 40 per cent higher than the level before the start of the Industrial Revolution.
He said nine of the 10 warmest years since records began in the 19th century have all occurred since 2000.
“The evidence is overwhelming that human activities are driving climate change, and the public should not be fooled by those who seek to delay and prevent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by claiming that the Earth is cooling or that carbon dioxide does not cause warming."
The last year was also the wettest on record as warm air tends to hold more water, with severe flooding in Pakistan.
In another marker of climate change, Arctic sea ice cover was the third smallest since record-keeping began in 1979.
As usual the weather varied across different regions, so even though north west Europe and Britain experienced a cold start to the year there were warmer than usual temperatures in other areas, with droughts across Russia later in the year, bringing up the average.
Rainfall also varied widely depending on the region, with fewer storms than normal over the Pacific but a high number of hurricanes over the Atlantic ocean.
The Met Office has also provisionally estimated that 2010 will be one of the hottest years on record and will confirm its figures later this month.
Daniel J. Weiss, who directs climate strategy for the Center for American Progress, told the Washington Post, said the figures should force the world to take action.
"Hopefully, this new data will finally convince congressional climate-science deniers that global warming is real and that action is urgent," he told the Washington Post. "To reject this latest evidence is like ignoring strange spots on a chest X-ray and continuing to smoke."