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GENEVA - The number of extreme climatic phenomena, from heatwaves, drought and floods to hurricanes, increased notably last year, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Monday.

In 2005 abnormal temperatures were registered in many areas of the globe, the WMO's Secretary General Michel Jarraud told a seminar here. They included "strong heatwaves which descended on a big part of continental Europe and North Africa in July," the head of the UN agency said.

They also included the worst drought in Spain and Portugal since the end of the 1940s and floods which devastated parts of Russia and eastern Europe, and then Switzerland, Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic.

Outside Europe a record number of hurricanes hit central America, the United States and the Carribean, Jarraud said, saying there could be a link between the freak weather and global warming, which he said could have an impact on the natural variability of the climate. We are still seeing an increase in the number of extreme meteorological and climatical phenomena of which some were of an unprecedented intensity, he said.