The Environment Chronicle

Euglena is the protozoa of the year 2010.

Perennial Herb of the year is the Nepeta cataria ("catnip" or "catmint").

The Wild cherry, Sweet cherry or Gean (botanic name Prunus avium) is the tree of the year 2010.

Flower of the Year 2010 is the Sibirian Iris (Iris sibirica).

Poisonous Plant of the Year 2010 is the autum crocus (Colchicum autumnale).

Endangered livestock breed of the year 2010 is the Meissner Lop.

A first assessment of the air quality in 2010 done by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) indicates that at 56 percent of the measuring stations in urban areas near traffic, the nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentration levels exceeded the annual mean value of 40 microgammes/cubic metre of air (µg/m3) which has been set as the statutory cap since 1.1.2010. The assessment is based on preliminary data from the federal states’ and UBA’s measuring networks. Concentrations of particulates (PM10) in 2010 again exceeded the caps which already became effective in 2005. 13% of all measuring stations registered PM10 concentrations of over 50 µg/m3 on more than 35 days.

In 2010, about 2,15 mio ha or nearly 18 percent of Germany`s arable lands were used for growing renewable resources.

Altogether, a total of 950 natural catastrophes were recorded last year, nine-tenths of which were weather-related events like storms and floods. This total makes 2010 the year with the second-highest number of natural catastrophes since 1980, markedly exceeding the annual average for the last ten years (785 events per year). In all, there were five catastrophes last year assignable to the top category of "great natural catastrophes" based on the definition criteria of the United Nations: the earthquakes in Haiti (12 January), Chile (27 February) and central China (13 April), the heatwave in Russia (July to September), and the floods in Pakistan (also July to September). These accounted for the major share of fatalities in 2010 (around 295,000) and just under half the overall losses caused by natural catastrophes.

A paper by Simon Lewis, Paulo Brando and three co-authors, published on 4 February 2011 in Science Magazine, reports on the 2010 drought in the Amazon Basin. This drought occurred only a few years after the exceptional drought of 2005, which was supposed to have been a one-in-a-hundred-year event. The paper presents evidence that last year's drought was both more severe and more extensive than the earlier one.

The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a new high in 2010 since pre-industrial time and the rate of increase has accelerated, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin. The analysis of observations from the WMO Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) Programme shows that the globally averaged mixing ratios of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) reached new highs in 2010, with CO2 at 389.0 ppm, CH4 at 1808 ppb and N2O at 323.2 ppb.

Energy-related carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2010 were the highest in history, according to the latest estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA). After a dip in 2009 caused by the global financial crisis, emissions are estimated to have climbed to a record 30.6 Gigatonnes (Gt), a 5% jump from the previous record year in 2008, when levels reached 29.3 Gt.

The 2010 meteorological year, which ended on 30 November, was the warmest in NASA's 130-year record, data posted by the agency on 10 January 2011 shows. Over the oceans as well as on land, the average global temperature for the 12-month period that began last December was 14.65˚C. That's 0.65˚C warmer than the average global temperature between 1951 and 1980, a period scientists use as a basis for comparison.

Floods in central Europe, wildfires in Russia, widespread flooding in Pakistan. The number and scale of weather-related natural catastrophe losses in the first nine months of 2010 was exceptionally high. Munich Re recorded a total of 725 weather-related natural hazard events with significant losses from January to September 2010, the second-highest figure recorded for the first nine months of the year since 1980. Some 21,000 people lost their lives, 1,760 in Pakistan alone, up to one-fifth of which was flooded for several weeks. Overall losses due to weather-related natural catastrophes from January to September came to more than US$ 65bn and insured losses to US$ 18bn. Despite producing 13 named storms, the hurricane season has been relatively benign to date, the hurricanes having pursued favourable courses. Munich Re’s natural catastrophe database, the most comprehensive of its kind in the world, shows a marked increase in the number of weather-related events. For instance, globally there has been a more than threefold increase in loss-related floods since 1980 and more than double the number of windstorm natural catastrophes, with particularly heavy losses as a result of Atlantic hurricanes.

An international research team has compared the hot summers of 2003 and 2010 in detail for the first time and published their findings in Science. The heatwave of 2010 across Eastern Europe and Russia was unprecedented in every respect: Europe has never experienced so large summer temperature anomalies in the last 500 years. The summer of 2010 was extreme. Russia was especially hard hit by the extraordinary heat. Devastating fires caused by the dry conditions covered an area of 1 million hectares, causing crop failures of around 25%; the total damage ran to about USD 15 billion. The 2010 heatwave shattered all the records both in terms of the deviation from the average temperatures and its spatial extent. The temperatures -- depending on the time period considered -- were between 6.7°C and 13.3°C above the average. The heatwave covered around 2 million km2. On average, the summer of 2010 was 0.2°C warmer in the whole of Europe than in 2003. The reason for the heatwaves in both 2003 and 2010 was a large, persistent high-pressure system associated by areas of low pressure in the east and west.

New research, published on 21 January 2011 in Environmental Research Letters, shows that 2010 set new records for the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet. The past melt season was exceptional, with melting in some areas stretching up to 50 days longer than average. Melting in 2010 started exceptionally early at the end of April and ended quite late in mid- September. The study, with different aspects sponsored by WWF, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA, examined surface temperature anomalies over the Greenland ice sheet surface, as well as estimates of surface melting from satellite data, ground observations and models.