Climate|The Last 8 Years Were the Hottest on Record
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The Last 8 Years Were the Hottest on Record
By Henry Fountain and Mira Rojanasakul Jan. 10, 2023
+0.89°C
Global average temperature
Compared with mid-20th century
–0.25°C
Source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
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 this week.
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.
NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also issued analyses of global temperatures for 2022 on Thursday, and their findings were similar. NASA's analysis ranked 2022 as tied with 2015 for fifth warmest, while NOAA had last year as the sixth warmest.
"But ranks only tell you part of the story," said Russell Vose, a NOAA scientist. What's more important, he said, is that the past eight years are the warmest ever. "They really do stand apart," he said.
Each of the past four decades has been warmer than one that preceded it, Dr. Vose added.
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 baseline
The Arctic is warming four times as fast as the rest of the world.
Europe had its second-hottest year in 2022.
Despite La Niña's cooling effect, 2022 was one of the hottest years on record.
Europe had its
second-hottest
year in 2022.
The Arctic is warming
four times as fast as
the rest of the world.
Despite La Niña's cooling
effect, 2022 was one of the
hottest years on record.
Source: Copernicus/ECMWF
"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 also issued its own analysis this week, ranking 2022 as fifth warmest.
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.
Temperature records broken during Europe's hottest summer
Weather station where record was broken
Region where record was broken
Linkoeping
104.2°F
Temperature records broken
during Europe's hottest summer
Sources: 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.
Temperature anomaly chartAnomalies are shown relative to the average temperature between 1951 and 1980.
Europe records mapIndividual records are 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.
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