While Australia sizzles, much of Europe, North America, China and Asia has been subjected to snowstorms and freezing weather disrupting trade and transport with climate deniers chortling that global cooling is here.

2009 is likely to be the fifth warmest year on record according to the World Meteorological Organisation, with the current decade being the warmest on record, eclipsing the 1990s, which in turn was warmer than the 1980s.

Study: Climate Set To 'Tip'
This Century. By Pallab Ghosh,

A Message from the Melting
Slopes of Everest. By Cahal Milmo and Sam Relph,
London Independent, July 6, 2007. "The sons of Hillary and Tenzing speak
out about climate change: 'Believe us, it's a reality'... Fifty-four years after

. By Steve Conner, The London Independent, December 29, 2006.

"It has been a hot year. The average temperature in Britain for 2006 was higher than at any time since records began in 1659... Little winter snow in the Alpine ski resorts, continuing droughts in Africa, mountain glaciers melting faster than at any time in the past 5,000 years, disappearing Arctic sea ice, Greenland's ice sheet sliding into the sea... You could be forgiven for thinking that you've heard it all before. You may think it's time to turn the page and read something else. But you'd be wrong. 2006 will be remembered by climatologists as the year in which the potential scale of global warming came into focus.

Greenpeace lamented the loss of lives and the extensive devastation wrought by super-typhoon Reming (international code name Durian) in parts of the Philippines, stressing that the latest extreme weather disturbance to hit the country is a portent of more violent weather events that countries around the world are likely to experience in the future as a consequence of climate change.
“The tragic loss of lives and the massive destruction of properties brought about by the super-typhoon deserves immediate attention and sympathy from the international community. It should also serve as a wake-up call about the need for governments to find ways to avert or mitigate the catastrophic impacts of extreme weather events which scientists predict could become more severe because of climate change. We are calling on governments worldwide to act decisively and urgently on climate change because it is poor countries like the Philippines who bear much of the brunt from such climate impacts,” said Abigail Jabines, Climate and Energy campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

Source: AAP, Tuesday August 1, 02:17 PM

Extreme weather conditions have produced a rare cloud formation over Australia's Mawson station in Antarctica.

Meteorological officer Renae Baker captured spectacular images of the nacreous clouds, otherwise known as polar stratospheric clouds, late last month.

Reflecting like an airborne mother-of-pearl shell, the cloud colours are produced when fading light at sunset passes through water-ice crystals blown along a strong jet of stratospheric air more than 10 kilometres above the ground.

A weather balloon measured temperatures down to minus 87 degrees celsius when the photographs were taken.

US: July 31, 2006

MIAMI - Historical data on hurricanes isn't accurate enough to conclude that they are becoming more ferocious or that global warming is to blame, as some studies have suggested, a noted storm researcher said on Friday.

In an article published in the journal Science, Chris Landsea, a leading researcher at the US National Hurricane Center, challenged studies that found a dramatic jump in hurricane intensity in recent years.

The paper is the latest salvo in the debate among climate scientists on whether human-induced global warming is producing stronger hurricanes.