THE MOST commonly cited risks of climate change are natural disasters: fiercer wildfires and hurricanes, bigger floods and longer droughts. But one of the most striking recent effects of global warming has been unusually mild weather in many parts of the world. The northern-hemisphere winter that ended on March 20th was the second-warmest since records began, and the warmest ever on land. The anomaly was biggest in Europe and Asia, where average temperatures from December to February were 3.2℃ (5.8°F) and 3.1℃ above the average from 1951-80, and o.8℃ and o.7℃ above those continents' previous record highs. After a normal autumn, temperatures stayed close to their November levels for months. In Boston, where daily lows in January tend to hover around -6℃, the av- erage minimum this January was o℃; for Tokyo the figures were o℃ and 5℃. By local standards, the balmiest winter of all was in Russia. Moscow's average daily low in January was -2℃, far from the customary -13℃.
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