Climate Year in Review

In addition to the record-obliterating hurricane season, 2005 is also on pace to go down as the hottest year on record, (beating out the El Nino year of 1998); the year with the most extensive Arctic melting ever recorded; and the year with the warmest Caribbean. 2005 also saw the driest Amazon in decades, drought persisting in the American West, and weather-related insurance losses three times higher than any year previous. At the Montreal climate conference, former head of the Canadian meteorological service, Gordon McBean, told reporters, "This doesn't prove in a mathematical sense that these were caused by climate change triggered by human activities. But it's exceedingly unlikely that all these things are happening by chance. All this is what climate scientists have been warning would happen."