The "El Niño" phenomenon has reappeared. 2007 could become the hottest year on record. Some meteorological experts from the UK and the US warned at the start of the New Year that, under the combined effects of global warming and the "El Niño" phenomenon, this year may become the hottest year since records began and will also have profound impacts on Earth.
2006 was the sixth hottest year on record.
The British spent New Year's Eve in rare blizzards, with British scientist Phil Jones warning on January 1st that extreme weather events would occur frequently across the globe in 2007, bringing drought to Indonesia and flooding California in the United States.
Phil Jones is the head of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK. He said that long-term global warming trends had already caused droughts in East Africa and melting of the Arctic ice cap, and these trends would intensify in 2007 with the arrival of El Niño. Together, they will cause the global temperature in 2007 to exceed that of 1998, making it the hottest year on record.
"The El Niño phenomenon will make the world warmer, and we are already experiencing a warming trend, with the global average temperature rising by 0.1 to 0.2 degrees Celsius every decade," Jones said: "When they come together, it will make 2007 hotter than last year, and may even make the next 12 months the hottest period on record."
2006 was the sixth hottest year since records began. For the UK, it was the hottest year since 1659.
Approaching the highest temperature in nearly a million years.