The findings of the 2009 State of the Climate study indicate that continued warming will transform the way in which societies function, as coastal cities, water supplies agriculture and infrastructure will all be threatened.

More than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries contributed to the report.

The data were collected from a number of sources, including satellites, weather balloons, weather stations, ships, buoys and field surveys. They all point to the same conclusion, the report says: "Our planet is warming."

The researchers found that each of the last three decades has been considerably warmer than the decade before.

In following decade-to-decade trends from such a range of sources from around the world, the researchers found, "we see clear and unmistakable signs of a warming world."

The study indicated that seven of 10 indicators for global temperature changes are rising: Air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, air temperature over oceans, sea level, ocean heat, humidity and temperature in the "active-weather" layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth's surface.

Three of the indicators are declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere.

People who doubt the report's findings should check the data, said Neville Nicholls, president of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and a lead author with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report.

''The warming trends in the satellite and surface thermometer data since 1979 (when the satellite data first became available) have been essentially identical, so don't be fooled by anyone telling you that global warming is caused by the urban heat island effect or problems with thermometers. The satellite data doesn't suffer from these issues,'' Nicholls said, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

In Australia, three intense heat waves in 2009 broke temperature records. Dust storms in the eastern part of the country that occurred last September and October are thought to be the worst since at least the 1940s.

In late January and early February of that year, extreme heat and bush fires claimed hundreds of lives. These events were cited in the report as an indication of things to come.

''Breaking records with ever increasing frequency is symptomatic of the underlying warming of the climate system,'' said Karl Braganza, manager of climate monitoring in the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and a contributor to the global report, the Herald reports.

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