UN Climate Report Reveals a Decade of Extreme Weather and Record High Temperatures [VIDEO]

The United Nations' World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released its decadal climate report Tuesday, which corroborated what many already believe to be true: the world is getting warmer, marked by a decade of unprecedented climate extremes.

The 10-year period between 2001 and 2010 was the warmest decade on record since modern meteorological records began around 1850, the report stated.

Those 10 years accounted for more record-breaking temperatures than any previous decade, and sea levels were said to have risen about twice as fast as the trend in the last 100 years.

Average air temperature on Earth during the study decade was nearly half a degree Celsius warmer than the average temperature from 1961-1990. Nine of the decade's years were among the 10 warmest on record, with 2010 being the warmest year ever recorded.

The report "gives a snapshot of much longer term behavior of the climate system," said Omar Baddour, coordinator for WMO climate system monitoring.

Baddour said that over the past four decades global temperatures have shown a "pronounced increase."

Michel Jarraud, the WMO Secretary General, said that the rate of temperature increase "between 1991-2000 and 2001-2010 was unprecedented."

"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," Jarraud said in an official WMO statement.

Citing an increase in heat-related mortalities in Europe and Russia, Jarruad said, "Given that climate change is expected to lead to more frequent and intense heat-waves, we need to be prepared."

Ninety-four percent of countries reporting had their warmest decade ever in 2001-2010 and no country reported a nationwide average decadal temperature anomaly cooler than the long-term average.

Despite the unprecedented heat, 2001-2010 was also the second wettest decade since 1901, and 2010 was the wettest year since the start of instrumental record keeping.

Flooding was the most frequently experienced extreme weather event over the course of the decade, the report stated, with major floods occurring in Eastern Europe, India, Africa, Asia (notably Pakistan in 2010, where 2,000 people died and 20 million were affected) and Australia.

Impacts of the extreme weather during 2001-2010, including heat waves, flooding, tropical cyclones and other natural phenomena, resulted in more than 370,000 deaths.

A summary of the WMO report The Global Climate 2001-2010, A Decade of Climate Extremes, is available here.