Earth’s average temperature rise has been rapid over the last 10 years – 2022 was the 5th warmest year in the last 142 years
The Earth’s average surface temperature in 2022 is on par with 2015 and is the 5th warmest on record, according to a NASA analysis. Continuing the long-term trend of global warming, global temperatures in 2022 were 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit (or 0.89 degrees Celsius) above the 1951-1980 average, scientists from the Goddard Institute in NASA for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
“This warming trend is alarming,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Our warming climate is already showing its signs: forest fires are intensifying. Hurricanes are getting stronger. Droughts are wreaking havoc and sea levels are rising.
The last nine years were the warmest years since modern record-keeping began in 1880. That means Earth in 2022 was about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 1.11 degrees Celsius) warmer than the late 19th century average.
“The reason for the warming trend is that human activities continue to pump huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and the long-term planetary effects will continue as well,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of GISS, NASA’s leading center for climate modeling. .
Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions rebounded after a short-lived drop in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, NASA scientists, as well as international scientists, determined that the 2022 carbon dioxide emissions were the highest on record. NASA also detected some superemitters of methane – another potent greenhouse gas – using the Earth’s Mineral Dust Source Survey instrument.
The Arctic region continues to experience the strongest warming trends — nearly four times the global average — according to GISS research presented at the American Geophysical Union’s 2022 annual meeting.
Communities around the world are facing impacts that scientists believe are linked to warming of the atmosphere and oceans. Climate change has intensified rainfall and tropical storms, deepened the severity of droughts, and increased the impact of storms. Last year brought torrential monsoon rains that ravaged Pakistan and a persistent extreme drought in the US Southwest. In September, Hurricane Ian became one of the strongest and costliest hurricanes to hit the continental US.
NASA’s global temperature analysis comes from data collected from weather stations and Antarctic 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 maintain consistent methods for calculating differences in global average surface temperature for each year. These ground-based measurements of surface temperature are consistent with satellite data collected since 2002 by Atmospheric Infrared Sounder on NASA’s Aqua satellite and with other considerations.
NASA uses the period 1951-1980 as a baseline to understand how global temperatures change over time. This baseline includes climate patterns such as La Niña and El Niño, as well as unusually warm or cold years due to other factors, ensuring that it includes natural variations in Earth’s temperature.
Many factors can affect the average temperature in any given year. For example, 2022 was one of the warmest on record despite the third consecutive year of La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean. NASA scientists estimate that the cooling effect of La Niña may have lowered global temperatures slightly (about 0.11 degrees Fahrenheit or 0.06 degrees Celsius) than they would be on average under more typical ocean conditions.
A separate, 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 base period (1901-2000) and methodology. Although year-specific rankings may differ slightly between records, they are broadly in agreement and both reflect continued long-term warming.
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