Climate: last eight years are hottest ever recorded

According to the World Meteorological Organization, the year 2022 ranks like the fifth or the hottest sixth year since the start of the measures due to a temporary cooling linked to the La Niña phenomenon.

by Audrey Garric

Humanity, which continues to unravel the climate system, suffers more than ever in return the wrath of warming. In 2022, extreme heat waves, historical droughts, devastating floods and devastating fires fell tirelessly on the planet, affecting millions of people and causing billions of dollars in economic losses. Proof that climate change does not offer respite, the last eight years are the hottest ever recorded, Announcements the World Meteorological Organization (OMM) , Thursday, January 12, confirming its forecasts of November 2022.

The average globe temperature in 2022 was 1.15 ° C higher than pre-industrial levels (1850-1900). It is the eighth consecutive year that this bar of 1 ° C is exceeded. Since the 1980s, every decade is warmer than the previous one.

The year 2022 ranks “only” as the fifth or the hottest sixth year recorded. The OMM could not fix the precise classification because the slight differences between the databases of which it synthesizes (NASA, the British Met Office or the European Service Copernicus for Climate Change) are located in the margin of Calculation of global temperature calculation.

The outbreak of temperatures was slightly attenuated by an episode La Niña – a thermal anomaly of surface water of the Equatorial Pacific which reduces the global temperature. This phenomenon continued over three consecutive years, which is rare. “But this cooling will be short -lived and will not reverse the long -term warming trend caused by the greenhouse gas record levels that trap heat in our atmosphere,” recalls the OMM.

Ocean overheating

Under the effect of human activities, and in particular the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas), the emissions continued their increase in 2022, so that the concentrations of co 2 or Methane have reached new records. These are the highest levels for more than 2 million years for the first greenhouse gas and more than 800,000 years for the second.

In Europe, The continent where warming is the fastest , 2022 is established as the second hottest year (behind 2020), with a record summer, according to the annual assessment of Copernicus Published Tuesday January 10. These are even The hottest year ever recorded in France , where the climate crisis has manifested very strongly, as well as in several countries in western Europe – Kingdom- Uni, Spain, Portugal, Italy, etc. These very high temperatures, combined with a serious drought, triggered many fires, causing a revival of emissions due to forest fires in these countries.

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/Media reports cited above.