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Findings published in the journal Science in September, 2000, reinforced previous projections of increasingly destructive weather as climate change progresses.

That study follows two previous studies by Karl et al. which had established the connection between greenhouse warming and extreme weather events: "Trends in U.S. Climate during the Twentieth Century, Consequences, Spring, 1995, Vol. 1, No. 1, Thomas Karl et al. Also: "The Coming Climate," by Thomas R. Karl, Neville Nicholls and Jonathan Gregory, Scientific American, May, 1997.

Some highlights from 2001:

• At the beginning of 2001, Britain emerged from its wettest winter in more than 270 years of record keeping.

• In early February, 22 successive blizzards in northern China stranded more than 100,000 herders, many of whom starved.

• In South Florida, the worst drought in 100 years triggered more than 1,200 wildfires.

• In early May, some 40 people died in the hottest spring on record in Pakistan.

• In June, Houston suffered the single most expensive storm in modern history when it received 35 inches of rain in one week, leaving $6 billion in damages.

• By late July, a protracted drought in Central America had left more than 1.5 million farmers with no crops to harvest. As a result, about one third of the combined populations of Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador are suffering from malnutrition.

• In Iran, a devastating drought left more than $2.5 billion in agricultural losses. The drought was temporarily interrupted in August by the worst flash flooding in 200 years in that country that killed nearly 500 people.

• In November, the worst flood in memory killed more than 1,000 people in Algeria.

• In Boston, after an October and November of record setting warmth, it was 71 degrees F. on Dec. 1.