Global temperatures made 2022 the sixth hottest year on record, new data reveals

'It is unequivocal that the climate is changing. It is unequivocal that we are causing it. And it's getting worse,' Dr. Dalia Kirschbaum said

The past eight years were the hottest eight on record globally according to six leading international temperature datasets, UN scientists have confirmed.

One of the six datasets is from the Met Office and University of East Anglia, which found that 2022 was another “near-record”, with the year coming in as the sixth warmest in records dating back to 1850.

The global average temperature was 1.16C above pre-industrial levels, making 2022 the ninth year in a row in which the global average temperature was 1C or more above the 19th century baseline, the Met Office said.

The University of Reading has released the latest version of the now-famous “climate stripes” graphic including 2022 using the Met Office figures, which inventor Professor Ed Hawkins said showed “stark” global warming.

Overall, the six international datasets consolidated by the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) found the average global temperature in 2022 was about 1.15C above 1850-1900 levels.

Despite a La Nina - a cooling of the equatorial Pacific that slightly reduces global average temperatures - the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) calculated 2022’s global average temperature was 14.76C, making it the sixth hottest year on record.

NASA, which has long included the Arctic in its global calculations, said 2022 is essentially tied for fifth warmest with 2015.

Currently, the NOAA doesn’t include the polar regions within its calculations because of data concerns.

If the Arctic, which is warming three to four times faster than the rest of the world, and the Antarctic are factored in, the NOAA said it would be the fifth warmest.

Records from both the NOAA and NASA stretch back more than a hundred years to 1880.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the global temperature is "pretty alarming... What we’re seeing is our warming climate, it’s warning all of us".

He added: "Forest fires are intensifying, hurricanes are getting stronger, droughts are wreaking havoc, sea levels are rising, extreme weather patterns threaten our well-being across this planet."

Berkeley Earth, a non-profit group of independent scientists, said it was the fifth warmest on record and noted that for 28 countries it was the hottest recorded year, including China, France, Germany, Spain, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

According to the World Meteorological Organisation, the likelihood of the world surpassing the 1.5C warming threshold, which the world adopted in 2015, is increasing with every year.

The United Nations weather agency said the last ten years average was 1.14C warmer than pre-industrial times.

Gavin Schmidt, NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies Director, said there are hints of an acceleration of warming, though the data isn’t quite solid enough to be sure.

Nonetheless, he added that the overall trend of warming is concrete.

"Since the mid-1970s you’ve seen this relentless increase in temperature and that’s totally robust to all the different methodologies," he said.

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