WASHINGTON _ It's cold comfort to people shivering in much of
the United States right now, but 2003 tied for the world's second
hottest year, according to new federal government data released
Thursday.

In what meteorologists say is new evidence that global warming
is real and worsening, the world's average temperature last year
was 58.03 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Climatic
Data Center in Asheville, N.C. That's 1.03 degrees warmer than the
124-year world average.

Going into December, it looked as though 2003 would rank only
third hottest, but a toasty last month tied the year with 2002 for
second place since record-keeping began on Jan. 1, 1880, said Jay
Lawrimore, the global data center's climate monitoring chief. The
hottest year was 1998, with an average temperature of 58.14.

The five hottest years on record all have occurred since 1997,
and the 10 hottest since 1990. It's been 221 months since the world
recorded a colder-than-normal month.

The consensus of climate scientists is that the world is warming
and will continue to get hotter because gases emitted from burning
fossil fuels are trapping heat from the sun, causing the atmosphere
to get warmer, as happens in a greenhouse.

Global temperatures increased 1 degree in the 20th century and
probably will increase 2 to 10 more degrees by 2100, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group that includes
many of the world's leading weather experts, predicted in 2001.

"Mother Nature keeps reminding us that (global warming) is going
on," said Kevin Trenberth, the head of climate analysis at the
National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "The
evidence never really comes out to contradict it, even though the
man on the street says, `It's bloody freezing out here.'"

Global warming may be playing a role in Americans' sense that
January has been especially cold, Trenberth and Lawrimore said.
Because winters have been milder in the 1990s and 2000s, cold snaps
feel colder, as people are unaccustomed to them, they said.
hello there & you too