12 Jan. () –
Earth’s average surface temperature in 2022 tied with 2015 for fifth warmest on recordaccording to a NASA analysis.
Continuing the long-term warming trend of the planet, global temperatures in 2022 were 0.89 degrees Celsius above average for NASA’s reference period (1951-1980), reported scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Research (GISS).
The last nine years have been the warmest since modern records began in 1880. This means that the Earth in 2022 was about 1.11 degrees Celsius warmer than the late 19th century average.
“The reason for the warming trend is that human activities continue to emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and long-term planetary impacts will also continue,” he said. it’s a statement Gavin Schmidt, director of GISS, NASA’s main climate modeling center.
GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS BEAT RECORD
Human-sourced greenhouse gas emissions have recovered after a short-lived drop in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, NASA scientists, as well as international researchers, determined that carbon dioxide emissions in 2022 have been the highest on record. NASA also identified some super emitters of methane -another powerful greenhouse gas- using the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Sources Investigation (EMIT) instrument, which was launched to the International Space Station earlier this year.
The Arctic region continues to experience the strongest warming trends, nearly four times the global average, according to new GISS research presented at the 2022 annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union and also according to another study.
Communities around the world are experiencing the impacts that scientists believe are related to the warming of the atmosphere and ocean.. Climate change has intensified rainfall and tropical storms, deepened the severity of droughts, and increased the impact of storm surges. Last year brought torrential monsoon rains that devastated Pakistan and a persistent mega-drought in the American Southwest. In September, Hurricane Ian became one of the most powerful and costly hurricanes to hit the continental United States.
NASA’s global temperature analysis is drawn from data collected by Antarctic weather stations and research stations, as well as instruments mounted on ships and ocean buoys. NASA scientists analyze these measurements to account for uncertainties in the data and to maintain consistent methods for calculating differences in global mean surface temperature for each year. These ground-based measurements of surface temperature are consistent with satellite data collected since 2002 by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite and with other estimates.
NASA uses the period from 1951 to 1980 as a baseline, or reference, for understanding how global temperatures change over time. That reference period includes weather patterns such as La Niña and El Niño, as well as unusually hot or cold years due to other factors, ensuring that it encompasses natural variations in the Earth’s temperature.
Many factors can affect the average temperature in a given year. For example, 2022 was one of the warmest on record despite a third consecutive year of La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean. NASA scientists estimate that the influence of cooling from La Niña it may have slightly lowered global temperatures from what would have been average under more typical oceanic conditions.
SIXTH WARMEST YEAR FOR NOAA
A separate and independent analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concluded that the global surface temperature for 2022 was the sixth warmest since 1880.
NOAA scientists use much of the same raw temperature data in their analysis and have a different reference period (1901-2000) and methodology. Although the rankings for specific years may differ slightly between registries, these are in broad agreement and both reflect continued long-term warming.
