Paul Martin was speaking at the UN climate change conference in Montreal, where talks on long-term strategies are reaching a critical stage.

It is not only the United States which has come under fire.

A British government minister has accused Saudi Arabia of using "outrageous" tactics to block progress.

'In this together'

Mr Martin, who is in the second week of his own campaign for re-election, formally opened the ministerial section of the conference on Wednesday.

His speech was clearly aimed at the United States, although he did not mention the country by name.

He told delegates from around 190 countries that "climate change is a global challenge that demands a global response, yet there are nations that resist...

"Well, it is our problem to solve. We are in this together."

At a news conference after the speech, Mr Martin referred explicitly to Canada's neighbours to the south, saying: "To the reticent nations, including the United States, I would say this: there is such a thing as a global conscience, and now is the time to listen to it."

'Parallel track'

One of the main controversies at this conference is an attempt by the Canadian Environment Minister, Stephane Dion, who is chairing the talks, to launch a two-year process of discussions outside the jurisdiction of the Kyoto agreement, which the US has rejected.

The aim is to set up a "parallel track" to discuss various options for taking forward international action, which would enable both the Americans and developing countries to participate without committing themselves to specific targets on cutting or limiting emissions.

The theory is that this would make it easier for those countries signed up to Kyoto to commit themselves to stronger legally-binding emission cuts when the current targets expire in 2012.

On the face of it, the Canadian proposal is so bland as to be meaningless, calling for "discussions to explore and analyse approaches for long-term co-operative action".

The wording has in fact been carefully chosen to mirror language used in previous agreements at Gleneagles under the UK presidency of the Group of Eight (G8) leading economies, and at the UN World Summit in New York.

Both of those were signed up to by the United States.

Even so, this proposal has so far been rejected by the US, which is wary of entering any process which might be seen as the first stage of a new Kyoto-style agreement.

Asked about the Canadian proposal, the head of the US delegation in Montreal, Paula Dobriansky, said "the best approach is one that takes into account diversified approaches and differing opinions. One size does not fit all."

Comment: Which means: "You guys play by one set of rules. The almighty United States of America plays by its own".

Saudi 'villains'

This attitude is causing exasperation amongst negotiators from the European Union, who feel that it is a step backwards from commitments made by President George W Bush during this year's British presidency of the G8.

But UK Environment Minister Elliott Morley reserved his strongest criticism for the tactics being used by Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are insisting on a procedure which could delay for years the system of policing the Kyoto agreement - and claiming that oil-producing states should receive compensation from industrialised countries for the lost revenues they could suffer if the world moves towards cleaner fuels.

"They are the villains of the piece," Mr Morley told reporters in Montreal.

He described the Saudi tactics as "outrageous", claiming that they were blocking every discussion and exerting a negative influence on the conference.

The findings, made two years ago while scientists were mapping a proposed wind farm, include a piece of birch wood, yellowish green grass, soil and insect parts, and appear to make up a forest floor that lined the coastline 5,500 years ago, reported The Boston Sunday Globe.

"We've been arguing for years whether there are remnant prehistoric landscapes out there and now we know they can exist," said Victor Mastone, director and chief archaeologist of the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources.

Mastone said this means there is the potential of going after "the big theory of how did people get here and how they lived."

Archaeologists have long believed that the first humans came to North America about 12,000 years ago by way of a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska.

But some scientists believe people may have migrated on a coastal route to get from Russia to the Pacific Coast or from Europe to North America. There's little evidence to support this hypothesis, however, because most of the prehistoric shoreline is under water. The discovery of an intact cultural site could provide evidence of tools or food gathering and help settle the debate.

"That's why the Nantucket Sound site is important," said David Robinson, an archaeologist with The Public Archaeology Laboratory Inc. in Pawtucket, R.I., who discovered the site.

"It provides evidence to say these land forms can survive," he told the newspaper.

Robinson said he isn't sure when he'll study the Nantucket Sound site further. The area is difficult to navigate and there is no money for surveying. He hopes to one day take a magnetic sensor over potential areas.

Cape Wind Associates, which has proposed the 130-turbine wind farm, redesigned the project this year to avoid the discovered area.

It was the year of the hurricane. It was also the year when scientists said that global warming can increase the intensity of hurricanes. But it was not the year when everyone could agree that hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in August, was at least in part the result of global warming brought on by emissions of man-made greenhouse gases.

The 2005 hurricane season is now officially rated as the busiest on record by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The 2005 season included 26 named storms, of which 13 grew big enough to be classified as hurricanes. Of these, seven turned out to be major hurricanes of category three or higher on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale. This was five more major hurricanes than average for a typical Atlantic season. Hurricane Wilma in October became the strongest Atlantic storm ever recorded, breaking the previous record set in 1988.

It wasn't just strength, it was frequency. For the first time since 1953, when scientists started to name tropical Atlantic storms, letters of the Greek alphabet had to be used because meteorologists had exhausted the original list of 21 alphabetically ordered names. The final tropical storm, Epsilon, formed over the central Atlantic Ocean on the penultimate day of the hurricane season.

"This hurricane season shattered records that have stood for decades - most named storms, most hurricanes and most category-five storms," says NOAA administrator Conrad Lautenbacher. "Arguably, it was the most devastating hurricane season the country has experienced in modern times. I'd like to foretell that next year will be calmer, but I can't. Historical trends say the atmosphere patterns and water temperatures are likely to force another active season upon us."

The real record-breaker was Katrina, the most destructive hurricane to strike the United States in living memory. More than 1,000 people died and some estimates put the cost of repairing New Orleans and its flood defences as high as $200bn (£117bn).

Some environmentalists were quick to point the finger of guilt at global warming, but not all scientists were convinced - not until some of them began to look at the data more carefully, that was. Until recently there was a fairly broad consensus among meteorologists that global warming could not explain the general upsurge in hurricanes recorded over the past couple of decades. People thought this current increase was just part of the normal long-term cycle driven by changes to the Atlantic circulation system. Few believed that it was directly related to an increase in sea-surface temperatures caused by climate change.

But then came a study by Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge who, in a letter published in the journal Nature, described how he had formulated a new measure of hurricane destructiveness. He compared changes in this measure of destructiveness, called "total dissipation of power", with the rise in sea-surface temperatures recorded in the Atlantic over the past 30 years.

Emanuel found that he could link an increase in hurricane activity with rises in ocean temperature caused by global warming and climate change. "My results suggest that future warming may lead to an upward trend in tropical cyclone destructive potential, and - taking into account an increasing coastal population - a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses in the 21st century," he says.

The study concluded that tropical storms are lasting 60 per cent longer and their wind speeds are up to 15 per cent higher. "This work implies that global tropical cyclone activity is responding in a rather large way to global warming," Emanuel says.

It is not unreasonable to pose a link between hurricanes and global warming given that sea-surface temperatures play a critical role in their formation. A hurricane is a tropical cyclone, an area of intense low pressure in the tropics surrounded by a violent, rotating storm. In the Atlantic, such phenomena are called hurricanes, in the eastern Pacific they are known as typhoons, and in the Indian Ocean they are known as cyclones.

"On the face of it, global warming can only make things worse," says science author Fred Pearce in the latest issue of New Scientist. "The initial pillar of humid air generally forms only when the temperature of the sea surface exceeds 26C. As the oceans warm, larger areas will exceed the threshold. And every degree above the threshold seems to encourage stronger hurricanes," he says.

When Katrina formed, the temperature of the Gulf of Mexico was about 30C, which encouraged the view that in a warmer world we can expect more violent hurricanes. Real life is more complex, however. A warmer world could also lead to a warmer atmosphere and this could diminish the critical difference in the temperatures between air and ocean that helps hurricanes to form.

Another way global warming could kill hurricanes is by generating stronger winds, which could stir up the sea, thereby cooling surface temperatures. Stronger winds could also disrupt the tall pillar of humid air needed for hurricane formation. "With all these uncertainties and contradictions, it is not surprising that different computer models have predicted everything from fewer hurricanes to more hurricanes as global warming kicks in," Pearce says.

More fuel was added to the fire of the debate in September when meteorologist Peter Webster of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and his colleagues published data showing that the frequency of category four and five cyclones - the two strongest types of hurricanes - had increased significantly over the past 35 years. Globally, category four and five storms climbed 57 per cent from the first half of the period to the second, they found. With the characteristic understatement of scientists treading in a controversial area, they conclude: "This trend is not inconsistent with recent climate model simulations that a doubling of carbon dioxide may increase the frequency of the most intense cyclones, although attribution of the 30-year trend to global warming would require a longer global data record and, especially, a deeper understanding of the role of hurricanes in the general circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, even in the present climate state."

In other words, the evidence is mounting that global warming can indeed affect the formation of hurricanes but as yet no one can say for sure whether this is happening now. And equally no one can say for sure that Katrina was made worse by greenhouse emissions. Previous hurricanes have after all killed far more people - the East Pakistan hurricane of 1970 probably killed half a million.

Most climate scientists believe that it will take far longer to assess whether global warming is having a real impact on the frequency or intensity of hurricanes. Emanuel, for example, estimates that it could take a further 50 years to detect an unambiguous trend in the intensity of hurricanes hitting the US. But whatever the long-term trend, it is clear that more hurricanes than usual are expected next year. In the words of one NOAA scientist: "We are in an active hurricane era."

How hurricanes form

All types of hurricanes start out as a cluster of thunderstorms which form as columns of warm, moist air rise above the surface of a tropical ocean where the temperature of the sea surface is above a critical threshold of 26C. If the thunderstorms become concentrated they can form a tall pillar of humid air extending from the sea surface to the high-altitude boundary of the stratosphere.

The low pressure at the base of the pillar of air sucks in more humid air. As the air rises, it cools and condenses, releasing heat that drives the engine of the tropical storm. Wind speeds pick up, and the entire weather system begins to rotate in a violent vortex centred around the eye of the storm.

Emotional Centers in Action

"For Inuit, warming is likely to disrupt or even destroy their hunting and food-sharing culture as reduced sea ice causes the animals on which they depend to decline, become less accessible, and possibly become extinct," said Robert Corell, who spearheaded an Arctic climate impact assessment.

More than 150,000 Inuit, formerly called eskimos, are spread throughout the vast frozen northern territories of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia and Russia.

These regions have experienced the most rapid and severe climate change on earth, according to Corell's assessment, which was prepared over four years by more than 300 scientists from 15 countries and six indigenous organizations.

Global warming has caused the northern ice cover to retreat, making it more dangerous for the Inuit to hunt food animals such as polar bears, seals and caribou, their investigation found.

These animals also face decline or extinction, unable to adapt to warmer temperatures as their own access to food sources, breeding grounds and migration routes are altered.

And, rising sea levels and flooding threaten coastal Inuit communities.

"Inuit are an ancient people. Our way of life is dependent on the natural environment and animals. Climate change is destroying our environment and eroding our culture," said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the ICC chair.

"But we refuse to disappear. We will not become a footnote to globalization."

The petition urges the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to declare the United States to be in violation of the 1948 American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man.

It also wants the Commission to recommend that the United States adopt mandatory limits of its greenhouse-gas emission and join international efforts to curb global warming.

And it wants the Commission to declare the United States should help the Inuit adapt to unavoidable impacts of climate change.

If the Commission rules in favour, the impact will be more political than legal, the ICC acknowledged. [...]

Thousands of villagers have been evacuated from the path of a possible lahar, or mud flow, that vulcanologists fear could burst over the crater lip if the eruption continues or intensifies, sweeping away the flimsy homes in its path.

A "red zone" has been declared around the volcano and several ships were ready to evacuate islanders if the situation worsens dramatically.

New Zealand vulcanologist Brad Scott, who is on Ambae monitoring the eruption, said "it remains a low-level eruption, but it could go either way — worsen or slowly subside."

The plumes of steam and gases were bursting from a huge vent in the middle of a muddy gray-brown Lake Vui in the crater — which before the eruptions began last month was a picturesque calm aqua blue.

Pilot Charles Nelson of local charter company Flight Club Vila said the lake "is looking like a huge grubby bowl of hot kava," referring to a murky local drink made of the pounded roots of a local pepper plant mixed with water.

Nelson was speaking after flying close to the erupting volcano Thursday morning.

Dead trees ring the edge of the crater, while trees in dense jungle nearby were covered in ash that has been belching from the volcano.

The huge smoke, ash and gas plume cast a shadow over now deserted villages clinging to the volcano's flank.

Some 5,000 villagers — half the island's population — are squatting in townships in low-lying areas of the northwest and southeast corners of the small island, one of more than 80 in the archipelago, which is studded with active and dormant volcanoes. The islands, with a total population of 200,000 people, are 1,400 miles northeast of Sydney, Australia.

"We're worried but it's still not increasing its activity and remains on level 2," or yellow alert, local transport operator Simean Tali said.

The ships mean "we should get off (the island) if it goes up," he added.

Two hospitals on the island have been emptied of patients, and teams of doctors and nurses were on call to fly to Ambae from the capital, Port Vila, if a major eruption occurs, the National Disaster Management Office said.

"Maybe nothing is going to happen, but it is better to be ready than not," the Daily Post newspaper quoted Prime Minister Ham Lini as saying.

Ambae, an hour's flight northeast from Port Vila, lies near the islands of Pentecost and Maewo, which could be used to help resettle people displaced by a major eruption.

"There were around 120 people extracting gemstones when the avalanche struck, burying a number of them," Ahmed said.

"Twenty-four were killed and the rest are fine. Locals have dug all the bodies out of the snow," Ahmed said.

He said a military helicopter had been despatched to the hard-to-reach area and had so far brought back 12 bodies to Dassu, the main town in the region, where they were handed over to relatives.

Police only learned of the avalanche late Thursday, when residents of the far-flung village of Sputmali in the highlands arrived at their police post.

Kohistan is located in the region of Pakistan that was devastated by a massive earthquake in October, which killed more than 73,000 people. Since then, the mountainous area has been jolted by more than 1,500 aftershocks.

Ahmed said it was possible a tremor had triggered the avalanche.

The gemstones are one of the only ways of making a living in the rugged area, which is four days trek from Dassu.

The stones are sold through intermediaries to buyers in foreign countries.

"This is a good source of income for many people in the region where there is no industry and very little agriculture," local administrative official Niaz Mohammad told AFP.

It was the first reported incident of its kind to hit gemstone prospectors in the area, he added.

Road conditions remained icy and dangerous in many areas, but the only serious disruptions were in western Brittany and around the Channel port of Calais in the north.

A sea search was on overnight off Calvados on France's Normandy coast after a yacht captain fell overboard in "difficult conditions", the local maritime authority said.

His two crewmates sounded the alarm late Thursday and an air and sea search began.

Most of the country has gone on winter alert, opening extra shelters to protect homeless people from the cold, which claimed a second victim overnight.

A 52-year-old woman was found dead of cold outside the wooden shack where she lived in the northwestern town of Le Mans. Police said she had suffered from poor health and had a drinking problem.

A homeless man in his 40s was found dead in a car on Tuesday in the central-eastern city of Lyon, thought to have died of cold.

Snow was likely to blanket many parts of Britain throughout Friday, weather forecasters said.

Newspapers reported that a man sleeping rough had been found frozen to death in West Bromwich, central England, where temperatures fell to -7C (23F).

High-speed train services from Paris to Lille, as well as Thalys and Eurostar links to London and Brussels, were coping with delays of up to 40 minutes, as drivers were told to reduce their speed.

Travellers at airports in Prague, Florence and Charleroi in southern Belgium experienced serious flight disruptions due to heavy snows and swirling winds.

Across Scandinavia, snowstorms cut power lines and disrupted rail and road traffic, with the situation expected to worsen in some places.

Sixteen people were injured in traffic accidents on icy roads in Finland, where more snow was expected in the south.

A snowstorm also swept Denmark, causing train delays, truck accidents and blocking several smaller roads, the Ritzau news agency reported. Police have warned Danes not to take to the roads in the east of the country.

Between 150 and 200 piglets died when a truck carrying around 800 of the animals rolled over in snowbound northern Denmark, local media reported.

In Switzerland, around 20 people were hurt in road accidents, including a 59-year-old man who was seriously injured when his car skidded on ice.

Road traffic was badly disrupted across Poland, especially in the northern Gdansk region, as well as in Hungary.

Snow caused few disruptions in Austria, however, beyond a traffic snarl on the Vienna ring road, since snow ploughs are systematically deployed on the roads during the harsh winters.

Traffic was also reported to be near normal in Germany, which has been coated in white from north to south, with 90 centimetres (three feet) of snow measured on Mount Brocken in the central Harz mountain range.

In Turkey, where snow and ice claimed four lives and cut road access to several thousand villages this week, temperatures dropped to minus 33 Celsius (minus 28 Fahrenheit) in some eastern mountain regions.

Severe drought, wind gusts of 40 mph and temperatures reaching the low 80s set the stage for the fires. Authorities believe they were mostly set by people ignoring fire bans and burning trash, shooting fireworks or throwing out cigarettes.

"Truly be careful with your activities, because people's lives are on the line," Perry said.

In central Oklahoma, grass fires flared in windy weather Thursday, consuming hundreds of acres of land and threatening scattered homes. By late afternoon, the flames appeared to ease as firefighters gained the upper hand on the blazes, said fire Maj. Brian Stanaland.

Many fires in Texas had been contained, but unseasonably dry and hot conditions persisted.

The National Weather Service predicted a return of hazardous conditions on Saturday, prompting fears that New Year's fireworks could spark another round of fires.

"It's not going to be a good day to throw up fireworks," meteorologist Alan Moller said. "This could lead to some really nasty fires."

Patrick Burke, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Norman, Okla., said little if any rain was forecast for that state over the next seven days. Strong wind and higher-than-normal temperatures were expected.

President Bush, who is staying this week at his Texas ranch, was briefed about the fires Thursday, according to White House spokesman Trent Duffy. The Agriculture Department is lending equipment and firefighters to help battle blazes in Texas and Oklahoma, Duffy said.

Cross Plains, a working-class town about 115 miles west of Fort Worth, was the hardest-hit community, losing about 90 homes and several other buildings, including a church, on Tuesday. Two of the state's three deaths were reported there, including Andrew Shepard's 89-year-old bedridden mother.

Shepard, 45, who couldn't get back inside his house to help his mother, was relieved by Perry's arrival, saying "we'll get more help by him seeing the devastation."

In all, the grass fires destroyed about 120 homes across Texas and about 75 in Oklahoma, authorities said.

This year has been the fifth-driest year on record for north and central Texas, where most of the fires happened. The annual rainfall in the Dallas-Fort Worth area is about 16 inches less than the average of about 35 inches. Oklahoma has received about 24 inches of rain this year, about 12 inches less than normal.

Severe drought, wind gusts of 40 mph and temperatures reaching the low 80s set the stage for the fires. Authorities believe they were mostly set by people ignoring fire bans and burning trash, shooting fireworks or throwing out cigarettes.

"Truly be careful with your activities, because people's lives are on the line," Perry said, warning that 'the state of Texas is a tinderbox."

By late afternoon, the flames in central Oklahoma appeared to ease as firefighters gained the upper hand on the blazes, said fire Maj. Brian Stanaland.

Many fires in Texas had been contained, but unseasonably dry and hot conditions persisted.

The National Weather Service predicted a return of hazardous conditions on Saturday, prompting fears that New Year's fireworks could spark another round of fires.

"It's not going to be a good day to throw up fireworks," meteorologist Alan Moller said. "This could lead to some really nasty fires."

Patrick Burke, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Norman, Okla., said little if any rain was forecast for that state over the next seven days. Strong wind and higher-than-normal temperatures were expected.

President Bush, who is staying this week at his Texas ranch, was briefed about the fires Thursday, according to White House spokesman Trent Duffy. The Agriculture Department is lending equipment and firefighters to help battle blazes in Texas and Oklahoma, Duffy said.

Cross Plains, a working-class town about 115 miles west of Fort Worth, was the hardest-hit community, losing about 90 homes and several other buildings, including a church, on Tuesday. Two of the state's three deaths were reported there, including Andrew Shepard's 89-year-old bedridden mother.

Shepard, 45, who couldn't get back inside his house to help his mother, was relieved by Perry's arrival, saying "we'll get more help by him seeing the devastation."

In all, the grass fires destroyed about 120 homes across Texas and about 75 in Oklahoma, authorities said.

This year has been the fifth-driest year on record for north and central Texas, where most of the fires happened. The annual rainfall in the Dallas-Fort Worth area is about 16 inches less than the average of about 35 inches. Oklahoma has received about 24 inches of rain this year, about 12 inches less than normal.

Meteorologists have predicted that by the end of the New Year's weekend, rainfall will total from three to six inches (7.5 to 15 centimeters) along the coast from San Francisco to the border of the state of Oregon.

The Russian River that flows through California's chic wine country is expected to breach its banks. The river is the most flood prone in the United States, according to water officials.

The ground has been saturated by rains in recent weeks, meaning soggy hillsides could give way and water will run off instead of being absorbed into soil.

Landslides have prompted homes to be evacuated as precautions in some communities and caused a boulder to plunge from a side of San Francisco's famed Telegraph Hill.

A high tide expected Saturday morning will likely exacerbate flooding in areas adjacent to the coast, according to Chris Godley, manager of emergency services in Marin County.

Godley is bringing in extra fire and public works crews for the weekend, and was planning to have "swift water" teams on standby to rescue "anyone not quite swift enough to avoid driving into deep water," he said.

"It is rare to have someone swept out of their home by flood water at 3 am," Godley said. "It is common to have someone drive into deep water and get stuck."

"A car is a heavy thing, until you put a lot of water under it. Then, it floats."

"These quakes are very small -- we think they're associated with that sticking and slipping as the ground is deformed and relaxes."

The mountain is about 50 miles north of Vancouver and 100 miles south of Seattle.

St. Helens' violent May 18, 1980, eruption blasted 3.7 billion cubic yards of ash and debris off the top of the mountain. A torrent of scalding mud poured down the north fork of the Toutle River. Fifty-seven people died in the blast, which left a gaping crater in place of the perfect, snowclad cone that had marked the original 9,677-foot peak known as "America's Mount Fuji."

St. Helens -- now 8,325 feet -- rumbled for another six years, extruding 97 million cubic yards of lava onto the crater floor in a series of 22 eruptions that built a 876-foot dome. The volcano fell silent in 1986.

Then in September 2004, the drumfire of low-level quakes began -- occasionally spiking above magnitude 3, but generally ranging between magnitude 1 and 2. In the past 15 months, the mountain has squeezed out about 102 million cubic yards of lava.

Winter weather has prevented aerial monitoring of the crater since Oct. 24, "but we know what the rate has been. It's been relentless," Sherrod said, noting geologists can also rely on a network of remote monitoring equipment to tell them what's happening.

"One view of this eruption is that we're at the end of the eruption that began in 1980," he added. "If it hadn't been so cataclysmic ... it might instead have gone through 30 or 40 years of domebuilding and small explosions."

All the recent activity has remained within the crater, though scientists -- keenly aware of the potential damage that silica-laced ash can pose to jet engines -- monitor St. Helens closely for plumes of smoke and ash that can go as high as 30,000 feet.

"We haven't had that kind of plume since March 8, which is either a blessing or it leads us into complacency," Sherrod said, adding quickly, "We avoid complacency."

"This dome collapses and grows and collapses and grows. It changes its location ... it can't seem to maintain its height at much more than it is now" -- about 1,300 feet. "Then it kind of shoves the sandpile aside and starts over."

It's not entirely clear where the lava is coming from. If it were being generated by the mountain, scientists would expect to see changes in the mountain's shape, its sides compressing as lava is spewed out.

At the current rate of extrusion, "three or four months would have been enough time to exhaust what was standing in the conduit. ... The volume is greater than anything that could be standing in a narrow 3-mile pipe," Sherrod said.

That suggests resupply from greater depths, which normally would generate certain gases and deep earthquakes. Neither is being detected.

"That's one of the headscratchers, I guess," Sherrod said.

St. Helens' unremitting, monthslong pace is not common, he said. "It's not a characteristic feature of volcanism."

The mountain is the youngest and most restless of the Cascade volcanos. "Most of what we see today is 4,000 years old," Sherrod said. By comparison, Oregon's Mount Hood is 30,000 to 50,000 years old. Parts of Mount Rainier in Washington date back 200,000 years.

Drivers slowed to a crawl on icy, snowpacked roads in the mountains an hour outside Denver. Vehicles slid off the highway near Georgetown and farther west, on Vail Pass, said Eric Escudero of the Colorado Department of Transportation. The pass and Loveland Pass were closed at various times due to weather and accidents.

Linda Rohlinger of Santa Monica, Calif., left Boulder for Vail around 11 a.m. but had traveled only 60 miles in three hours. She and her husband stopped in Georgetown for lunch after inching through stop-and-go traffic at 5 mph for miles.

"I felt like we were on the 405 in Los Angeles," said Rohlinger, 40. "I've been coming up to Colorado for 14 years, and I've never seen it like this."

At the Eisenhower Tunnel, where I-70 knifes under the Continental Divide, traffic was stopped each hour to let vehicles carrying hazardous materials pass through while Loveland Pass was closed. Heavy snow was falling on the west side of the tunnel, and the road was icy.

"It's packed and barely moving," said Amanda Henson at the visitors center in Georgetown.

At the nearby Happy Cooker, server Stephanie Mellon said the restaurant was packed.

"Everybody's all grumpy because they didn't get to go skiing," she said. "Everybody had the same story. They were going skiing, the roads were terrible, people were sliding all around."

Snow and blowing snow advisories were issued through Monday evening for much of the northern and central mountains. Aspen reported a half-mile visibility as snow fell, the National Weather Service said. Copper Mountain Ski Resort reported 6 inches of new snow in the past 24 hours Thursday afternoon, and the Loveland ski area at the Continental Divide reported 9.

South of Denver, a wind gust of 75 mph was reported near Chatfield Reservoir as the storm reached the metropolitan area, spitting out rain and snow and sending dust blowing through the streets of downtown. The highest gust at Denver International Airport was 64 mph.

"It died once it got past the airport onto the plains, away from the mountains," said Carl Burroughs of the National Weather Service.

The wind downed several trees in Denver, with one falling on a pickup truck and some falling onto houses, Denver TV stations reported. Two small chimneys blew off another house.

Back in Georgetown, Rohlinger was getting ready to head back out onto I-70.

"We expected there to be some delay because it's a holiday weekend and there's snow, but not as much as we experienced," she said. "The drive has been beautiful, with the snow on the ground and on the trees, despite the time it's taking."

Extremes were everywhere. Above-normal heat covered twice as much land as usual. Excessive rain and snow blanketed three times as much land as normal. Average daily low temperatures were warmer than normal across four times as much U.S. territory as in average years.

It was the third worst year for U.S. extreme-weather events in history, according to the National Climatic Data Center. For 2005's first 11 months, the nation had an extreme-climate index figure of 35, behind only 1998's 42 and 1934's 37. The average annual score is 20.

One form of extreme weather fell short, however: tornadoes. In 2005, there were only half as many killer U.S. tornadoes as recent norms.

The relentless Atlantic hurricane season especially marked 2005 as wild - and tragic. Hurricanes set or tied 19 records, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including:

• Hurricane Katrina caused $50 billion in insured damages.

• Hurricane Wilma set a hemispheric record for low barometric pressure.

• Three Category 5 hurricanes formed: Katrina, Rita and Wilma.

• A record seven major storms packed winds above 110 mph; the old record was five.

• Fourteen hurricanes in the season beat the old record of 12.

• The 26 named storms shattered the old mark of 21, set in 1933, causing meteorologists to run out of conventional names for hurricanes and tropical storms. They had to go five deep into the Greek alphabet for new names.

Many of the remaining extremes came from Alaska, which had 53 percent of the wildfire acreage burned and set temperature, rain and snow records almost weekly. That's because Alaska is getting hotter from global warming and its permafrost is melting, said Jay Lawrimore, the chief of the National Climatic Data Center's climate-monitoring branch.

It's less clear whether what's happening nationally can be blamed on global warming or results from mere chance. Scientists are researching the question on supercomputers. One theory is that warmer air holds more moisture, creating bigger downpours, snowfalls and stronger hurricanes, and that warmer air also worsens droughts.

Lawrimore said that one year's extremes couldn't necessarily be blamed on climate change and were more likely to reflect random weather shifts. But Kevin Trenberth, the climate-analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said initial studies showed that global warming might be a factor.

In his latest research, Trenberth calculated that because the ocean is warmer, there's been an 8 percent increase in moisture flowing into tropical storms and hurricanes, and in rain coming out of them. For Katrina, that meant an extra inch of rain fell on the Gulf Coast.

"We're in the realm now where global warming is with us and we're going to see this year to year," Trenberth said.

Leading the way was Alberta, where three massive storms about a week apart dumped record amounts of rain in June.

The result was a flood of almost biblical proportions - or at least the kind that mercifully comes once every 200 or so years.

Four people were killed and livestock drowned in what became one of the province's costliest natural disasters, with damage topping $400 million.

In Calgary, one in 10 homes was flooded. Thousands of residents were forced to flee as water reached basement ceilings. Some in High River needed to be rescued by helicopter.

"It was like looking through a murky aquarium," Kathi Solomon-Duda, of Evergreen Estates near Coaldale, said of her basement.

In all, about 40 municipalities in southern Alberta were damaged, and 14 declared states of emergency, as floodwaters washed out roads and parks, destroyed sewers and bridges and wrecked buildings.

Not content with swamping swaths of Alberta, close to 40 days and nights of rain that started June 1 triggered the worst summer flood in Manitoba history and the No. 2 spot on Environment Canada's list.

"It was just continual, actual lightning bolts as opposed to the sheet lightning you usually see," Winnipeg resident Mike Dubienski said of one storm.

"And the thunder - I've never heard crashes like that before."

The rare summer washout of 2005 caused about $400 million in damage and losses.

Water covered the largest geographic area of the province on record. Pastures looked like rice paddies and one-quarter of Manitoba farmland was out of commission.

The record number of roads closed at one time outdid even the worst of winter.

In all, nearly 200 local authorities needed disaster assistance, 22 municipalities declared a state of emergency, and 5,000 claims were filed for private flood damage - excluding agricultural losses.

Only the Great Flood of '97 prompted more claims.

And just as the two provinces were drying out, and amid a seemingly endless summer, a cluster of brutal thunderstorms packing 1,400 lightning strikes per minute turned Toronto the Good into Toronto the Very Wet.

More than 10 centimetres of rain fell in barely an hour on the afternoon of Aug. 19, double the hourly amount of Hurricane Hazel in 1954.

To the southwest, a couple of tornadoes with gusts of up to 250 kilometres an hour uprooted trees, downed power lines, tossed cars and trucks aside, and ripped into homes, cottages and barns.

At one farm, the twisters drove a ballpoint pen deep into a tree, splitting the trunk, Environment Canada said.

Damage tallied at more than $500 million resulted in Canada's second largest insured losses on record.

But the weather of '05 wasn't all bad.

Ontario and Quebec had one heck of a summer, nasty smog and humidity aside. It was one of the hottest on record, and a far cry from 2004, when summer essentially wasn't.

Toronto alone saw 41 days of 30-degree-plus weather, more than double the normal 14 in a season, while Montreal saw 23, triple the usual eight.

At least six deaths were blamed on the relentless heat.

And though 2005 was all about deadly hurricanes in North America, Canada didn't see one - a story worth the No. 5 spot.

"One has to be, of course, in awe of what's happened globally," said Phillips.

"What happened in Canada pales by those standards."

Environment Canada compiles its Top 10 list based on factors such as the impact of the events, the size of the area affected and the economic effects.

Here are Canada's Top 10 weather stories of 2005, as compiled by Environment Canada:

1. Alberta swamped by massive early summer flooding.

2. Manitoba washed out by rare record summer flood.

3. August rains cause Ontario's costliest weather disaster.

4. The sweltering summer in Ontario and Quebec.

5. The Year of the Hurricane - but not in Canada.

6. April showers bring May floods to the Maritimes.

7. Winter snow goes missing in British Columbia.

A week of snow in January buries Atlantic Canada.

Weird brew of storms, cold and warmth flummoxes Great Lakes region in November.

10. B.C.'s tropical punch in January prompts rain, mudslides and sizzling temperatures.

Source: Environment Canada.

The environmental year began with devastation in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which struck on 26 December 2004. The tsunami claimed 300,000 lives, crippled economies, and wiped out coastal communities from Sri Lanka to Somalia. But it also caused considerable environmental damage, carrying salt water far inland and smashing coral reefs across south-east Asia.

Seismologists warned that the earthquake would be the first of many, and confirmation came first in March when a huge related quake struck Sumatra. Then in October, another gargantuan quake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale levelled swathes of Pakistan and Kashmir. The death toll is 80,000 so far, but winter may take the lives of many more people lacking adequate shelter.
Stormy summer

In 2005 climate change was blamed for an increase in tropical weather system severity. Hurricanes such as Dennis, Emily, Rita, Wilma and Stan wrought devastation and repeatedly hit the headlines.

The most damaging was Katrina which tore across the US Gulf Coast, dragging a 6-metre-high storm surge, and created a disaster zone covering 90,000 square miles. 80% of New Orleans disappeared underwater, and the US faced a humanitarian disaster on a scale not seen since the great depression.

The year saw not only an increase in frequency of tropical storms, but also changes in their behaviour, fuelling claims that global warming is to blame. Catarina, which struck Brazil in March, was the first hurricane ever recorded to form over the South Atlantic. Tropical storms from the Americas also found their way to Spain and Africa - another first.
Global thaw

Also in 2005, ice continued to thaw across the planet. In April, researchers announced that 87% of Antarctic glaciers have retreated in the last 50 years. The edges of these ice sheets are now slipping into the ocean at an unprecedented rate. The massive west Antarctic ice sheet is also starting to collapse.

Similarly, in the northern hemisphere, Siberian permafrost covering a million square kilometres is melting into peat bogs, while the extent of Arctic sea ice was lower than it has been in a century.

Disturbingly, in November, a new survey warned that Europe could be flipped into a miniature ice age, if warm ocean currents are knocked off course by rising temperatures. Some experts now predict that within 10 years global warming will become irreversible.
Climate action

Despite warning signs, many governments have been slow to take decisive action. In July, six non-signatories to Kyoto, including the US and Australia, announced plans to develop "clean energy" technologies rather than emissions caps. In May, G8 leaders agreed that warming is an urgent problem, but did little more.

An international climate conference held in Montreal, Canada, in December was hailed as a qualified success by some. At the meeting, signatories to Kyoto agreed to set tougher targets, and the world's biggest polluter, the US, agreed to continue talks about its own contribution.

While national governments drag their feet, many city and state governments around the world are now setting their own targets for cutting emissions.
Ecological footprint

During 2005 humans continued to degrade the Earth's environment. The Amazon rainforest continued to be cleared at a rate of 24,000 km2 per year - equivalent to losing an area the size of New York City's Central Park each hour. In October, satellite date presented an even bleaker picture.

Big sporting events were found to leave massive "ecological footprints". Nearly all wild rivers - those unfettered by dams or irrigation systems - are gone. Ever increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is slowly acidifying the oceans, with potentially catastrophic effects on marine life. The seasonal hole in the Arctic ozone layer may have been bigger than ever this year. Also, despite efforts to prevent it, illegal fishing was found to be thriving this year, as was poaching of our closest living relative, the bonobo.

In November, 100 tonnes of chemicals, including benzene, flowed into China's Songhua River after an explosion at a chemical plant. The toxic slick affected the water supply of a number of large Chinese cities, before heading to Russia in December. Another explosion in December at a UK fuel depot, ignited Europe's largest ever peacetime blaze, which burnt for several days and sent a 3-km-high plume of toxic gas in the atmosphere.

It was not all bad news though. In June, the International Whaling Commission voted to uphold the 19-year whaling moratorium, though Japan announced plans to double its "scientific catch" quota of minke whales. In November the UN revealed that reforestation projects around the world had resulted in a small reduction in global deforestation rates. And in February research revealed that Iraq's Mesopotamian marshlands, devastated by damming and draining, are showing renewed signs of life.

The permafrost beneath the west Siberian peatlands is thawing, creating giant lakes and swelling rivers. More worryingly, the melting of the bogs - which cover an area the size of France and Germany combined - could unleash billions of tonnes of methane. This greenhouse gas is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so the event has the potential to accelerate global warming.

Meanwhile, higher air and sea temperatures dramatically reduced the extent of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean this year. Satellite measurements analysed by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, showed 20 per cent less ice than when NASA took the first pictures in 1978. "Feedbacks are starting to take hold," says NSIDC's Ted Scambos. Newly thawed expanses of ocean absorb more solar radiation, which in turn melts more ice.

And this month one of the linchpins of the climate system, the global ocean circulation system known as the conveyor belt, was found to be faltering, as evidenced by a 30 per cent reduction in the northward flow of warm water from the Gulf Stream over the past decade. The worry is that this could herald one of the most widely discussed tipping points of all - a shutdown of the conveyor that would plunge western Europe into freezing winters and threaten climate systems worldwide, including the Asian monsoon.

The main causes of the damage were air pollution from motor vehicles and contamination of the soil from agriculture.

"The state of health of forests remains a source of concern," Peter Paziorek -- a state secretary in the agriculture ministry -- said Tuesday.

He called for stricter air pollution measures to be introduced and an increase in the use of environmentally friendly fuel.

The report by the agriculture ministry said 29 percent of trees showed signs of damage or disease in 2005, a slight improvement on the 31 percent in 2004.

However, the state of oak trees had worsened dramatically, while 20 percent of fir trees were in a poor condition compared with 17 percent in 2004.

The German farmers' federation (DBV) blamed the Europe-wide heatwave in 2003 and the high ozone levels it triggered for much of the damage.

Environmental group NABU said the report was alarming.

"Such a picture of damage being painted repeatedly and so often proves the clear threat to the very existence of forests," the group said.

It called for an end to mass livestock rearing which it said contributed to soil pollution from chemicals.

"It's fair to say that it probably is the warmest since we have modern meteorological records," said Drew Shindell of the NASA institute in New York City.

"Using indirect measurements that go back farther, I think it's even fair to say that it's the warmest in the last several thousand years."

Some researchers had expected 1998 would be the hottest year on record, notably because a strong El Nino -- a warm-water pattern in the eastern Pacific -- boosted global temperatures.

But Shindell said last year was slightly warmer than 1998, even without any extraordinary weather pattern. Temperatures in the Arctic were unusually warm in 2005, NASA said.

"That very anomalously warm year (1998) has become the norm," Shindell said in a telephone interview.

"The rate of warming has been so rapid that this temperature that we only got when we had a real strong El Nino now has become something that we've gotten without any unusual worldwide weather disturbance."

Over the past 30 years, Earth has warmed by 1.08 degrees F (0.6 degrees C), NASA said. Over the past 100 years, it has warmed by 1.44 degrees F (0.8 degrees C).

Shindell, in line with the view held by most scientists, attributed the rise to emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and ozone, with the burning of fossil fuels being the primary source.

The 21st century could see global temperature increases of 6 to 10 degrees F (3 to 5 degrees C), Shindell said.

"That will really bring us up to the warmest temperatures the world has experienced probably in the last million years," he said.

To understand whether the Earth is cooling or warming, scientists use data from weather stations on land, satellite measurements of sea surface temperature since 1982, and data from ships for earlier years.

More information and images are available online at: NASA.gov.

Ten people have frozen to death or died of burns while trying to keep warm in the Czech Republic in recent days after temperatures fell below -30 Celsius (minus 22 F), media said.

Police said another another 14 people have died of exposure in Poland over the past 24 hours.

The bitter cold has now spread to the far south of Europe, regions which normally enjoy milder winters.

In Greece, more than 400 villages and towns were cut off after 36 hours of continuous snowfall and hundreds of snow-clearing vehicles struggled to keep main routes open.

Ports across the country stayed shut as icy gale-force winds swept across the Aegean sea, dropping a carpet of snow over the islands.

A Cambodia-flagged cargo ship sank in the northern Aegean sea amid a snowstorm on Tuesday, the merchant marine ministry said. All but two of the 16 mainly Turkish crew were rescued by the coast guard and rescuers were search for the missing.

Athenians also enjoyed the rare sight of the Acropolis hill under a covering of snow. One of the world's most visited monuments, its classical marble temples were closed to the public for a second day due to the weather.

Italy is also suffering from the cold snap, with the thermometer falling to -35 C in mountains in the north-east. At the other end of the country, heavy snow swept parts of the Mediterranean island of Sicily on Wednesday morning.

Newspapers reported that two people died of exposure near Imola in the north of the country, while cities around Italy opened metro stations and railway waiting rooms overnight to provide shelter for the homeless.

The harsh winter has led to a surge in demand for gas as Italians try to keep their homes warm, forcing the government to introduce emergency measures to preserve dwindling gas stocks.

The initiative includes lowering the maximum temperature of central heating systems by one degree Celsius and cutting the heating time by one hour per day. People who ignore the decree face a fine of up to 800 euros ($980).