2022 Tied for Fifth Warmest 12 months
Earth’s average surface temperature in 2022 tied with 2015 because the fifth warmest on record, based on a latest evaluation by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Continuing the planet’s long-term warming trend, global temperatures in 2022 were 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit (0.89 degrees Celsius) above the common for the institute’s baseline period of 1951-1980.
The past nine years have been the warmest since modern record keeping began in 1880. Earth in 2022 was about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1.11 degrees Celsius) warmer than the late nineteenth century average.
“The rationale for the warming trend is that human activities proceed to pump enormous amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and the long-term planetary impacts may also proceed,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of the Goddard Institute, NASA’s leading center for climate modeling.
Prior to now two years years, human-driven greenhouse gas emissions rebounded following a short-lived dip in 2020 resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, scientists from NASA and other institutions determined carbon dioxide emissions in 2022 were the highest on record. Using satellite measurements, NASA also identified greater than 50 super-emitters of methane, one other powerful greenhouse gas, mainly from fossil-fuel, waste and agricultural sources.
The Arctic continues to experience the strongest warming trends—near 4 times the worldwide average—based on Goddard Institute research presented on the 2022 annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, in addition to a separate study.
Communities around the globe are experiencing the impacts. Climate change has intensified rainfall and tropical storms, deepened the severity of droughts, and increased the impact of storm surges. Last yr brought torrential monsoon rains that devastated Pakistan and a persistent megadrought within the U.S. Southwest. In September, Hurricane Ian became one in all the strongest and costliest hurricanes to strike the continental U.S.
NASA’s global temperature evaluation is drawn from data collected by weather stations around the globe, and instruments mounted on ships and ocean buoys. NASA scientists analyze these measurements to account for uncertainties in the information and to take care of consistent methods for calculating global average surface temperature differences for each yr. The bottom-based measurements of surface temperature are consistent with satellite data collected since 2002.
Many aspects can affect the common temperature in any given yr, and NASA includes short-term climate patterns to make sure its analyses encompass natural variations. For instance, 2022 was one in all the warmest on record despite being the third consecutive yr of La Niña conditions within the tropical Pacific Ocean, which are inclined to produce cooler sea-surface temperatures. NASA scientists estimate that La Niña’s cooling influence can have lowered global temperatures barely (about 0.11 degrees Fahrenheit or 0.06 degrees Celsius) from what the common would have been under more typical ocean conditions.
A separate, independent evaluation this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concluded that the worldwide surface temperature for 2022 was the sixth highest since 1880. NOAA scientists use much of the identical raw temperature data of their analyses, but have a special baseline period (1901-2000) and methodology. Although rankings for specific years can differ barely between the records, they’re in broad agreement. Each reflect ongoing long-term warming.
Goddard Institute for Space Studies, situated in Latest York, is affiliated with Columbia University’s Earth Institute and its School of Engineering and Applied Science.
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