The first ten months of 2012 witnessed high temperature, a number of extreme weather and climate events as well as unprecedented melting of Arctic sea ice, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday.

2001 to 2011 were among the warmest years on record, with the first ten months of 2012 indicating it would be no exception despite the cooling influence of La Nina early in the year, the WMO said in its provisional annual statement on the state of the global climate.

It said that the January-October period this year was the ninth warmest such period since records began in 1850.

The global land and ocean surface temperature for the period was about 0.45 degrees higher than the 1961-1990 average of 14.2 degrees, according to the statement.

During the first ten months of 2012, above-average temperatures affected most of the globe's land surface areas, except for Australia and parts of northern China.

WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said the reason for the cooler-than-average conditions in Australia was a typical effect of La Nina, which is characterized by unusually cool ocean surface temperature in the central and eastern tropical Pacific.

Notable extreme weather and climate events were observed worldwide, but some parts of the Northern Hemisphere were affected by multiple extremes, including heat waves, drought, floods, snow and extreme cold, said the statement.

The provisional statement was released to inform negotiators at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar. Final updates and figures for the 2012 will be published in March 2013, said the WMO.

(Xinhua News Agency November 28, 2012)