When Nature Yelled in 2010

2010 was yet another unusual year when weather played havoc around the globe. From the present chill that is sweeping across most parts of Europe to one of the worst floods to hit Pakistan, the weather ran amok in 2010. Scientists have blamed the unusual weather patterns to global warming and the shift in sea temperatures.A new study says that the shifting weather patterns are due to the receding shifting ice blocks in the Arctics. Scientists say that a string of freezing European winters scattered over the last decade has been driven in large part by global warming.But one may wonder how global warming will lead to freezing temperatures. Here is the explanation:

Rising temperatures in the Arctic have resulted in the peeling of the floating ice in the Arctic by over 20% in the last three decades. This has given a window of the sun's radiation to come in and get absorbed by the dark blue sea. If the peeling had not happened, the deadly radiation would have been bounced back into space by the reflective ice and snow.

This phenomenon has led to the creation of a massive source of heat during the winter months, especially in the oceans. The waters become warmer than the overlying air in the Polar area in winter resulting in a major heat flow heating up the atmosphere from below which you don't have when it is covered by ice.

The result, according to a modelling study published earlier this month in the Journal of Geophysical Research, is a strong high-pressure system over the newly-exposed sea which brings cold Polar air, swirling counter-clockwise, into Europe.

The mechanism triples the chances that future winters in Europe and north Asia will be similarly inclement, the study reports. Researchers have also attributed global warming to the number of severe floods and storms.

Here is a look at the floods and storms that brought misery in 2010:

A tree is seen surounded by snow covered vineyards in the Alsacian countryside in Scharrachbergheim after snow fell on North-Eastern France. REUTERS

A young girl looks at a snowman made by her father in Vancouver's Stanley Park January 10, 2007. The 14th storm in the last couple months blew into the lower mainland area of Canada's west coast packing strong winds followed by snow and cold temperatures.

Snow is cleared from the southern runway at Heathrow airport in west London December 21, 2010. Snow and freezing temperatures continued to ground flights to and from Britain on Tuesday, with travellers hoping to get away for Christmas likely to suffer delays and cancellations for several more days.

Snow is cleared from the southern runway at Heathrow airport in west London December 21, 2010. Snow and freezing temperatures continued to ground flights to and from Britain on Tuesday, with travellers hoping to get away for Christmas likely to suffer delays and cancellations for several more days.

A damaged car is pictured after flash floods on the outskirts of Leh, east of Srinagar August 9, 2010. More than 300 foreign tourists are stranded in Himalayan region of Ladakh, three days after flash floods killed at least 150 people and ravaged the main town of Leh, officials said on Monday.

Rescue workers in a boat pass by a crashed U.N. relief helicopter in Manchar Lake by Lakha village, in a flood-affected area near Dadu district, Pakistan's Sindh province October 2, 2010. The helicopter crashed early Friday morning, injuring seven people, a U.N. official said.

A woman displaced by flooding carries her children as she approaches a boat while returning to her flooded town of Bobak, about 300 kilometres (186 miles) from Karachi on September 20, 2010.