This document is the 2013 edition of WMO's internationally recognized series gathering together the key climate events of the year. It provides an in-depth analysis of regional trends as part of a WMO drive to provide more information at regional and national levels to support adaptation to climate variability and change.
It considers the impact of droughts, heat waves, floods and tropical cyclones on people and property in all parts of the planet and highlights the key climate events of 2013 including Typhoon Haiyan, the record heat in Australia, Argentina and New Zealand, the frigid polar air that plummeted into parts of Europe and the southeast United States. It warns that the Antarctic sea ice extent reached a record daily maximum and that global oceans reached new record high sea level
The study concluded that "Comparing climate model simulations with and without human factors shows that the record hot Australian summer of 2012/13 was about five times as likely as a result of human-induced influence on climate and that the record hot calendar year of 2013 would have been virtually impossible without human contributions of heat-trapping gases, illustrating that some extreme events are becoming much more likely due to climate change."