Also Warmest January-April. The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for both April and for the period from January-April, according to NOAA. Additionally, last month’s average ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for any April, and the global land surface temperature was the third warmest on record.

Reasonable worst-case scenarios for global warming could lead to deadly temperatures for humans in coming centuries, according to research findings from Purdue University and the University of New South Wales, Australia.

The European Commission today releases the results of a Eurobarometer opinion poll looking at how citizens view the quality of life in 75 major European cities. In these challenging economic times, availability of jobs and housing costs remain dominant concerns. Although responses reveal wide disparities overall, the level of service for transport, heath and education generally scores well. The wealth of information provided by the survey is not only useful for city planners and decision-makers, but also for citizens who would like to know which cities are seen as good places to live.

A report by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK-Report No. 116), published today, points at constructional flaws in the current global system for protection of the climate. The authors analyse the interests of the different groups of countries and delineate how international climate policy could be modified to keep global warming to two degrees Celsius, as called for in the Copenhagen Accord.

The European Commission has published a Eurobarometer survey which shows that many Europeans do not understand what is meant by biodiversity and do not feel well informed about biodiversity loss. The Commission has at the same time launched a campaign aimed at informing the public about the loss of biodiversity in the EU.

FAO publishes key findings of global forest resources assessment. World deforestation, mainly the conversion of tropical forests to agricultural land, has decreased over the past ten years but continues at an alarmingly high rate in many countries, FAO announced.

Habitat loss and climate change are having a serious impact on Europe’s butterflies, beetles and dragonflies. The release of the latest European Red List, commissioned by the European Commission, shows that nine percent of butterflies, 11 percent of beetles that depend on decaying wood and 14 percent of dragonflies are threatened with extinction within Europe. Some species are so threatened that they are at risk of global extinction and are now included in the latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™.

2009 was tied for the second warmest year in the modern record, a new NASA analysis of global surface temperature shows. The analysis, conducted by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, also shows that in the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year since modern records began in 1880.

A Special Feature of the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” presents the latest scientific insights on so-called tipping elements in the planetary environment. These elements have been identified as the most vulnerable large-scale components of the Earth System that may be profoundly altered by human interference. If one or more of those components is tipped – especially in the course of global warming – then the age of remarkably stable environmental conditions on Earth throughout the Holocene may end quickly and irreversibly.

A new scientific study warns that sea level could rise much faster than previously expected. By the year 2100, global sea level could rise between 75 and 190 centimetres, according to a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.