Year shaping up as 2nd warmest ever

This year is on track to be the second warmest since records began in the 1860s and floods in Pakistan or a heat wave in Greece may herald worse disruptions in store from global warming, experts said on Friday.

"2007 is looking as though it will be the second warmest behind 1998," said Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia, which provides data to the UN's International Meteorological Organization.

"It isn't far behind ... it could change, but at the moment this looks unlikely," he said, based on temperature records up to the end of April.