| | | Earth’s Last 8 Years Were the Hottest on Record - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
CLIMATE|The Last 8 Years Were the Hottest on Record
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2022
+1.18°C
+1.0°C
Global average temperature
Compared with a preindustrial baseline
+0.5°C
1940
1960
1980
2000
2020
Source: Copernicus/ECMWF
The Last 8 Years Were the Hottest on Record
By Henry Fountain and Mira RojanasakulJan. 10, 2023
Earth’s Last 8 Years Were the Hottest on Record - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
The world remained firmly in warming’s grip last year, with extreme summer temperatures in Europe, China and elsewhere contributing to 2022 being the fifth-hottest year on record, European climate researchers said on Tuesday.
The eight warmest years on record have now occurred since 2014, the scientists, from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, reported, and 2016 remains the hottest year ever.
Overall, the world is now 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.1 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than it was in the second half of the 19th century, when emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels became widespread.
Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus service, said the underlying warming trend since the pre-industrial age made 2022’s ranking in the top five “neither unexpected or unsurprising.”
“The rare event now would be to see a really cold year,” he said.
2022 average temperature anomaly compared with 1981–2010 average
–2°C
–1°C
0
+1°C
+2°C
+3°C
The Arctic is warming four times as fast as the rest of the world.
RUSSIA
Europe had its second-hottest year in 2022.
UNITED STATES
CHINA
Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
Despite La Niña’s cooling effect, 2022 was one of the hottest years on record.
Indian Ocean
BRAZIL
AUSTRALIA
Source: Copernicus/ECMWF
Last year was among the warmest despite the persistence of La Niña for the third consecutive year. La Niña is a climate pattern marked by colder-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that tend to suppress global temperatures.
“We are continuing the long-term warming trend of the planet,” said Zeke Hausfather, a researcher at Berkeley Earth, an independent organization that analyzes environmental data. “If you draw a straight line through temperatures since 1970, 2022 lands almost exactly on where you’d expect temperatures to be.”
Berkeley Earth will issue its own analysis of 2022 data later this week, as will NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Temperature records broken during Europe’s hottest summer
NORWAY
SWEDEN
Oslo
Stockholm
ESTONIA
Weather station where record was broken
Region where record was broken
Linkoeping
98.4°F
Aalborg
93.9°F
LATVIA
Edinburgh
87.4°F
DENMARK
LITHUANIA
IRELAND
Hamburg
104.2°F
U.K.
Den Helder
97.0°F
Berlin
100.9°F
London
104.4°F
Warsaw
NETHERLANDS
POLAND
GERMANY
Frankfurt
CZECH REP.
Nantes–
Bouguenais
107.6°F
Paris
AUSTRIA
HUNGARY
FRANCE
ROMANIA
Lyon
CROATIA
Milan
Ourense
109.9°F
SERBIA
ITALY
Marseille
Porto
Madrid
105.3°F
Barcelona
Rome
PORTUGAL
Palma
102.4°F
Naples
SPAIN
Lisbon
GREECE
Almeria
107.6°F
Source: Copernicus/ECMWF, NOAA Global Historical Climatology Network Records reflect the hottest year since at least 1980. Individual records do not reflect all weather stations that observed record temperatures in 2022. Record-breaking regions are based on Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis models.
The Copernicus scientists said Europe had its hottest summer ever in 2022, with several heat waves rolling across the continent that set temperature records in many cities. Separate research has shown that heat waves in Europe are increasing in frequency and intensity at a faster rate than almost anywhere else, fueled by warming but also, most likely, by shifts in atmospheric and oceanic circulation.
The effects of such a warm year were felt elsewhere around the world as well. Eastern and Central China, Pakistan and India all experienced lengthy and extreme heat waves in 2022, and monsoon floods in Pakistan ravaged much of the country. The heat and accompanying dryness also contributed to extensive wildfires in the Western United States.
MethodologyTemperature anomaly chartThe preindustrial baseline, which averages global temperatures between 1850 and 1900, is based on a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Europe records mapIndividual records taken from weather stations with at least 40 years of continuous operation and a minimum of 183 observations in any given year. Individual maximum temperature observations that failed quality checks were excluded.
Exact weather stations for each city are: Edinburgh Royal Botanic Garden, London Heathrow, Ourense, Madrid Retiro, Almeria Airport, Den Helder, Hamburg Neuwiedenthal, Berlin Buch, Aalborg Airport and Linkoeping Malmslätt.
Regional temperature records were calculated from Copernicus ECWMF's ERA5 Reanalysis 2m temperature data, obtained through the Copernicus Climate Data Store. Maximum temperatures in 2022 were compared with the maximum temperatures for all previous years going back to 1980.
Earth’s Last 8 Years Were the Hottest on Record - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
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