The world experienced unprecedented high-impact climate extremes during the 2001-2010 decade, which was the warmest since the start of modern measurements in 1850 and continued an extended period of pronounced global warming, report Ryan Koronowski and Katie Valentine at Climate Progress.. More national temperature records were reported broken than in any previous decade, according to a new report by the World Meteorological Organization. The report analysed global and regional temperatures and precipitation, as well as extreme events such as the heat waves in Europe and Russia, Hurricane Katrina, droughts in Amazonas, Australia and East Africa, and floods in Pakistan. The decade was the warmest for both hemispheres and for both land and ocean surface temperatures. The record warmth was accompanied by a rapid decline in Arctic sea ice, and accelerating loss of net mass from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and from the world’s glaciers. WMO’s secretary…