India experienced its hottest year on record in 2010, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said on January 14, blaming the rise in temperatures on global warming. India's mean annual temperature during 2010 was 0.93 degrees Celsius (33.6 Fahrenheit) higher than the long term (1961-1990) average, according to the Annual Climate Summary of India during 2010.
"Indians experienced the worst summer in the last one century, and this was a definite result of global warming," IMD spokesman B.K. Bandyopadhyay told AFP. The country's weather records began in 1901.
The study also said that that the 2001-2010 decade was the warmest since the records started, with a temperature averaging 0.40 degrees Celsius (32.7 Fahrenheit) higher than that of the previous decade. "We are still trying to examine the key reasons responsible for the drastic rise in temperatures and ways to control it," the spokesman added.
Experts on climate change warn that without action the planet's rising temperatures could unleash potentially catastrophic change to the earth's climate system, leading to hunger, drought, storms and massive species loss.
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