2022 was 5th or 6th warmest on record as Earth’s temperatures rise, say NASA and NOAA

Earth temperatures continued last year, not reaching record highs but still among the five or six hottest years on record, government agencies reported Thursday.

But expect scorching hot years, likely in the next few years due to “unrelenting” climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas, US government scientists say.

Despite La Nina, a cooling of the equatorial Pacific that slightly reduced the global average temperature, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) calculated the global average temperature in 2022 to be 14.76 C, the sixth warmest on record. NOAA excludes polar regions due to data concerns, but not for long.

If the Arctic – which is warming three to four times faster than the rest of the world – and Antarctica are considered, NOAA said it would be the fifth warmest. NASA, which has long overestimated the Arctic in global calculations, says 2022 is tied for fifth-warmest with 2015. Four other scientific agencies or science groups around the world put the year as the fifth or sixth warmest.

NOAA and NASA records go back to 1880.

Some countries broke records

Berkeley Earth, a non-profit independent group of scientists, said it was the fifth hottest year on record and noted that for 28 countries it was the hottest year on record, including China, the UK, Spain, France, Germany and New Zealand.

The end of the year is less than 2021, but most of the science team says that the big problem is that the last eight years, since 2015, have been higher than the higher temperatures that the world has experienced. All eight years were more than 1 C warmer than pre-industrial times, NOAA and NASA said. Last year was 1.1 C warmer than the mid-19th century, NASA said.

“The past eight years have been clearly warmer than previous years,” said NOAA analysis branch chief Russ Vose.

You can’t take pills, so fixing it is not easy– Renee McPherson, University of Oklahoma

In the human body, two extra degrees is considered a fever, but University of Oklahoma meteorology professor Renee McPherson, who was not part of the study team, said that global warming is worse than the equivalent of a planetary fever due to fever. can be treated with rapid decline.

“You can’t take a pill, so fixing it isn’t easy,” McPherson said. “It’s more what you think of as a chronic disease like cancer.”

Like a fever, “every ten degrees matters, and things break down and that’s what we’re seeing,” said Climate Center Chief Meteorologist Bernadette Woods Placky.

‘Unrelenting temperature rise’

The probability of the world shooting over the 1.5 C warming threshold adopted by the world in 2015 is increasing every year, says the World Meteorological Organization. The United Nations weather agency says the last 10 years have averaged 1.14 C warmer than pre-industrial times.

Vose and NASA Goddard Space Studies Director Gavin Schmidt said there are signs of accelerating warming, but the data isn’t solid enough to be sure. But the overall trend of warmth is rock solid, they say.

“Since the mid-1970s, you’ve seen a steady and really strong rise in temperature for all the different methodologies,” Schmidt said.

La Nina, a natural process that alters weather around the world, is in its third year in a row. Schmidt calculated that last year’s La Nina cooled the overall temperature by about 0.06 C, and that last year was the warmest La Nina year on record.

“Today’s La Nina year is not yesterday’s La Nina year,” said North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello. “Historically, we could count on La Nina turning down the global thermostat. Now, heat-trapping gases are keeping temperatures up, and giving us the top 10 hottest years on record.”

With La Nina possibly dissipating and possible El Nino on the way – which adds to the warmth – Schmidt said this year will likely be warmer than 2022. And next year, he said, watch out for El Nino.

“This would suggest that 2024 will be the warmest year by a large number,” Schmidt said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Scientists say about 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases goes above 2,000 meters of the ocean, and figures released Wednesday point to 2022 as another record year for ocean heat.

WATCH | Looking for a record summer 2022

“There is a very good relationship between patterns of ocean warming, stratification, and the weather we experience in our daily lives on land,” including stronger hurricanes and rising seas, said study author John Abraham of the University of St. . Thomas.

In the United States, global warming first made headlines when Schmidt’s predecessor, climate scientist James Hansen, testified about worsening warming in 1988. That year would become the warmest on record at the time.

Currently, 1988 is the 28th warmest year on record.

The last year the Earth was cooler than the 20th century average was 1976, according to NOAA.

But scientists say the average temperature isn’t what affects people. What affects and hurts people is how warming makes extreme weather events, such as heat waves, floods, droughts and storms worse or more frequent, or both, he said.

“This trend should concern everyone,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, who was not part of the study team.

WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas said in 2022 that the extreme “destroys health, food, energy and water security and infrastructure. Large areas in Pakistan are flooded, with great economic losses and casualties. , North and South America. Prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa threatens a humanitarian disaster.”