The relentless challenge of global warming was again underscored by the passing year count, with 2022 ranking as one of the hottest years on record and the past eight years now collectively the hottest documented by modern science. .
According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), last year’s average temperature was about 1.15C higher globally than levels seen in the pre-industrial era, with record-breaking, scorching heat enveloping much of Europe and Asia, both of which had their second warmest year. . Europe experienced its hottest summer ever.
The cooling influence of La Niña, a periodic weather event now in its third year that brings warmer temperatures to parts of the globe, helped dampen some of the heat of 2022, the year ranking as the fifth or sixth hottest year on record.
WMO relies on six different datasets, including NASA’s, which last year ranked fifth in the 143-year record, and the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). United, which places the year in sixth place, due to minor differences. in data collection.
The long-term trend is clearly apparent, however, with the eight hottest years on record all occurring since 2015, with 2016 still being the hottest of all, and each decade since the 1980s being progressively warmer than the last. The 10 hottest years have all occurred since 2010.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the warming trend was “quite alarming, and it’s a growing trend.”
“If we don’t take this seriously, there will be deadly effects across the world. Extreme weather conditions threaten our well-being across the planet and we need bold action.
The year ahead threatens much the same, with the WMO pointing out that La Niña conditions will likely diminish after March, removing the enhanced cooling effect of warming caused by mankind’s continued burning of fossil fuels.
Rising heat bodes well for the kind of climate-induced disasters that have punctuated 2022, including the floods that flooded about a third of Pakistan, a record heatwave that scorched China, and wildfires that scorched across Europe and North America. The heat and accompanying dryness helped uncover sunken battleships and bombs in parched European rivers and human bodies in disaster American tanks.
“In 2022, we faced several dramatic weather disasters that claimed far too many lives and livelihoods and undermined health, food, energy and water security and infrastructure” , said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, who added that an extended period Drought in the Horn of Africa “threat of a humanitarian catastrophe”.
The opening leg of 2023 has already seen extraordinary heat cook much of europewhile California has been repeatedly flooded by the kind of flood that scientists warn is aggravated by the climate crisis.
Assessment of the last year of high heat – 2022 was the 46th consecutive year with temperatures above the 20th century average – includes millions of atmospheric and sea temperature records, plus a health check of other signs lifeblood of the Earth.
The mean annual Arctic sea ice extent was the 11th smallest in a record dating back to 1979, with the 10 lowest Arctic sea ice extents all occurring since 2007, while annual of sea ice around Antarctica was the second lowest, surpassed only by the 1987 record.
Most of the heat trapped by the ejection of greenhouse gases goes directly to the oceans, which set an annual heat record in 2022, a recent study found. According to Michael Mann, a climatologist at the University of Pennsylvania.
“A few years ago we showed that we expected the record streak to continue as long as we continue to warm the planet, but with these kinds of temporary interruptions due to natural variability,” he said. -he declares. “So what we see here is what we expect.”
Rachel Licker, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said rising temperatures should prompt policymakers in the United States and around the world to do much more to reduce global warming emissions.
“Instead of giving in to the interests of the fossil fuel industry aiming to increase their profits, we need strong leaders ready to implement bold climate policies for the good of people and the planet,” he said. she stated.
Policymakers reluctant to move beyond incrementalism and corporations involved in greenwashing are frankly stealing the future that rightfully belongs to our children. The science is clear: transformative action at scale is the only way forward. »
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