BRUSSELS: Last year was the world’s joint-fifth warmest year on record and the past nine years were the ninth warmest since the pre-industrial era, seriously undermining the 2015 Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C. endangered, US scientists said Thursday. .
Last year was tied with 2015 for the fifth warmest year since record-keeping began in 1880, NASA said. This was despite the presence of the La Niña weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which typically lowers global temperatures slightly.
The world’s average global temperature is now 1.1 to 1.2C higher than pre-industrial levels.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday it has pegged 2022 as the sixth-warmest year since 1880. European Union scientists said this week that 2022 was their fifth warmest year on record.
(1 of 6) It’s official: Earth had its 6th-warmest year on record in 2022, according to NOAA scientists.
— NOAA (@NOAA) January 12, 2023
The avg global surface #temperature was 1.55°F (0.86 of a degree C) above the 20th-century avg. https://t.co/O79dbB56hl@NOAANCEI #StateOfClimate pic.twitter.com/IxOvj05KTz
Climate assessments produce somewhat different classifications depending on the data sources used and the record of minor changes in the data over time, for example, moving a weather station to a new location. is being done.
Temperatures are rising by more than 0.2C per decade, NASA said, putting the world on track to exceed the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C. In order to avoid its most disastrous consequences.
“At the rate we’re going, it won’t take us more than two decades to get there. And the only way we’re not going to do that is if we stop putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.” said Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
Schmidt said he expects 2022 to be slightly warmer than 2023 due to a weaker La Nina cooling trend.
“The global average temperature will be even higher 10 years from now,” said ETH Zurich climate scientist Sonia Sainiwiratne, adding that unless countries cut back on CO2-emitting fossil fuels. If you don’t stop burning, the temperature will continue to rise.
Weather extremes
A changing climate has fueled extreme weather on Earth in 2022. Europe suffered its hottest summer on record, while floods in Pakistan killed 1,700 people and destroyed infrastructure, droughts destroyed crops in Uganda and wildfires raged in Mediterranean countries.
Despite most of the world’s major emitters pledging to reduce their net emissions to zero, global CO2 emissions continue to rise.
Last year, atmospheric CO2 concentrations reached levels not experienced on Earth for 3 million years, Schmidt said.
At this year’s COP28 climate conference, countries will formally review their progress towards the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C target – and the rapid emissions reductions needed to meet it.
The United Arab Emirates, which hosts COP28, on Thursday appointed the head of its state-owned oil company as conference president, raising concerns among campaigners and scientists about the influence of the fossil fuel industry in the talks.
