By Oren Dorell, USA TODAY

March, April, May and June set records, making 2010 the warmest year worldwide since record-keeping began in 1880, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says. “It’s part of an overall trend,” says Jay Lawrimore, climate analysis chief at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. “Global temperatures ... have been rising for the last 100-plus years. Much of the increase is due to increases in greenhouse gases.”

There were exceptions: June was cooler than average across Scandinavia, southeastern China, and the northwestern USA, according to NOAA’s report.

If nothing changes, Lawrimore predicts:

•Flooding rains like those in Nashville in May will be more common.

“The atmosphere is able to hold more water as it warms, and greater water content leads to greater downpours,” he says.

• Heavy snow, like the record snows that crippled Baltimore and Washington last winter, is likely to increase because storms are moving north. Also, the Great Lakes aren’t freezing as early or as much. “As cold outbreaks occur, cold air goes over the Great Lakes, picks up moisture and dumps on the Northeast,” he says.

• Droughts are likely to be more severe and heat waves more frequent.

• More arctic ice will disappear, speeding up warming, as the Arctic Ocean warms “more than would happen if the sea ice were in place,” he says. Arctic sea ice was at a record low in June.

Marc Morano, a global-warming skeptic who edits the Climate Depot website, says the government “is playing the climate fear card by hyping predictions and cherry-picking data.”

Joe D’Aleo, a meteorologist who co-founded The Weather Channel, disagrees, too. He says oceans are entering a cooling cycle that will lower temperatures.

He says too many of the weather stations NOAA uses are in warmer urban areas.

“The only reliable data set right now is satellite,” D’Aleo says.

He says NASA satellite data shows the average temperature in June was 0.79 degrees higher than normal. NOAA says it was 1.22 degrees higher.

ICECAP NOTE: UAH RELEASE: Global composite temp.: +0.44 C (about 0.79 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year average for June. All temperature anomalies are based on a 20-year average (1979-1998) for the month reported.) Notes on data released July 7, 2010:

Given the onset of La Nina and rapid cooling of the Pacific and some cooling in the eastern Atlantic due to upwelling (and soon the tropical and western Atlantic from heat extraction by tropical systems- western Gulf has already cooled from Alex and TD), oceans should continue to cool and like in 2007, temperatures globally should drop significantly. 2010 will likely fall in the top 5 but not be the warmest ever. The top 5 ranking is guaranteed by all the issues identified here. Reality is something else.

Comments from Richard Keen on the Lawrimore story: Lawrimore’s comment..."Heavy snow, like the record snows that crippled Baltimore and Washington last winter, is likely to increase because storms are moving north. Also, the Great Lakes aren’t freezing as early or as much. “As cold outbreaks occur, cold air goes over the Great Lakes, picks up moisture and dumps on the Northeast,” he says.” ...shows a complete lack of understanding of weather (which makes up climate).  East coast snows are caused by lows off the coast, and if the storms move north, Baltimore, Philadelphia, NYC et al. find themselves in the warm sectors of the lows, and enjoy warm southerly winds and rain. Furthermore, during the snow storms, the winds are from the northeast bringing moisture from the Atlantic (hence the name “nor’easter” for these storms); very little of the moisture comes from the Great Lakes.  One of Philadelphia’s snowiest winters was 1978-79, when the Lakes were all but frozen over.  Along the east coast, a region that averages very near freezing during the winter, the limiting factor for snow storms is not moisture, but temperature.  Most storms are rain.

See also Marc Morano’s full text of his very detailed compilation of responses to NOAA’s Lawrimore on Climate Depot here.