The joint warmest years globally since world records began in 1856 were 1998 and 2005, followed by 2001/2/3/4/6!

The Arctic ice sheet is contracting at approx 8% per decade and is believed to have lost almost half its thickness in the last 50 years.

Shrinking glaciers, thawing permafrost (buildings are subsiding in Alaska and Siberia). The wet soils then emit methane.

Tropical diseases: additional deaths due to the migration of disease caused by warming could already be 5 million, according to the World Health Organisation. Also animal diseases – e.g. the “blue tongue” virus, formerly only found in Africa, has killed large nos. of sheep in Europe.

According to the insurance industry, there were three times  as many severe natural disasters during the 1990s as during the 1960s. In the UK, the cost of storm and flood damage doubled over the five years to 2004.

Water shortages in Africa - the war in Darfur is at least partly put down to climate change.

Desertification of Northern China (also due to tree removal): During 2005, desert has increased by an area  larger than Britain.  Three times as many dust storms in the 1990s as in the 1960s.

Displacement of Inuits due to melting ice.

During 2003, high temperature extremes reached Europe, causing over 20,000 deaths; in parts of Eastern Europe, the wheat harvest was down by 80%. In India, 1400 people (mostly outdoor workers) died of heat exhaustion with exceptional temperatures up to 49°C.

A few other examples of recent extreme weather, which may be indicative of an emissions-related climate change trend, are:

Worst recorded flooding in UK in 2000.
Worst recorded flooding in Mozambique in 2000.
Worst recorded drought in Australia since 1997.
Worst floods for a century in British Columbia in 2003.
Worst recorded wildfires in Australia and California in 2003.
Extreme flooding in Bangladesh in 2004.
Extreme flooding and drought in different parts of N. India in 2004.
Worst recorded wildfires in Portugal in 2005.

Dying coral reefs and planckton due to increasing acidification of the oceans as they absorb more carbon dioxide from the air.

Miscellaneous: lengthening of growing seasons in the most northern and southern countries, animal and plant species moving towards the poles or to higher ground, decline of some animal and plant populations, earlier tree flowering, insect emergence and egg-laying in birds.