Published July 29, 2010 | The Wall Street Journal A new
assessment concludes that the Earth has been getting warmer over
the past 50 years and the past decade was the warmest on record
-- but doesn't try to make the link between climate change and
what might be causing it. The State of the Climate 2009 report,
published Wednesday as a special supplement to the Bulletin of
the American Meteorological Society, was compiled by 300
scientists from 48 countries and drew on measures of 10 crucial
climate indicators. Seven of the indicators were rising,
including air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature,
sea level, ocean heat and humidity. Three indicators were
declining, including Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow
cover in the Northern Hemisphere. "Each indicator is changing as
we'd expect in a warming world," said Peter Thorne, senior
researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Climate and
Satellites, a research consortium based in College Park, Md.,
who was involved in compiling the report. The r