In a warning, the agency also explained that 2022 is the year For the eighth year in a row, global temperatures have increased by at least 1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levelsdriven by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and accumulated heat.
The impact of La Nina
The cooling effect of the La Niña phenomenon – now in its third year – makes 2022 not the hottest year ever.
“This cooling effect will be short-lived and will not reverse the long-term warming trend caused by record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere,” WMO warning, adding that there is a 60% chance that La Niña will continue until March 2023, followed by “ENSO neutral” conditions (not El Niño or La Niña).
Despite La Niña, 2022 is still marked by severe weather disasters related to climate change, ranging from catastrophic floods in Pakistan to deadly heat waves in China, Europe, North and South Africa. South America, prolonged drought and the misery of millions in the Horn of Africa.
In late December, violent storms also began to sweep across large areas of North America, bringing high winds, heavy snowfall, flooding and low temperatures.
WMO director: investing in readiness
These emergencies have “declared too many lives and livelihoods and undermine health, food security, energy and water and infrastructure”, WMO Secretary-General, Professor Petteri Taalas, called on all countries to strengthen their preparedness for extreme weather events.
“Today only half of the 193 (UN) Members have appropriate early warning services, resulting in much higher human and economic losses,” explained the head of WMO. “There are also major gaps in baseline weather observations in Africa and island nations, which have a major negative impact on the quality of weather forecasts.”
Analysis of the United Nations agency’s data shows that the average global temperature in 2022 is about 1.15C (34.07F) higher than pre-industrial levels (1850-1900). This compares to 1.09C (33.96F) from 2011 to 2020 and shows that long-term warming shows no sign of stopping.
Scientific approach
“Since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one. This is expected to continue,” said the UN agency, adding that the eight hottest years have all been since 2015, of which the three years of 2016, 2019 and 2020 were the three hottest. WMO explains: “A particularly strong El Niño event occurred in 2016, which contributed to a record increase in global temperatures.
To arrive at its findings, the United Nations agency collated and compared weather data sets from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Institute for Space Research Goddard of NASA (NASA GISS); UK Met Office Hadley Center and University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (HadCRUT); Berkeley Earth group, the European Center for Medium Range Weather Prediction and its Copernicus Climate Change Service; and the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).
Millions of meteorological and marine observations have been used, including from satellites, the WMO adds, adding that combining observations with modeled values helps to estimate temperatures.”Anytime and anywhere across the globe, even in regions with little data like the polar regions.”
WMO also warns against placing too much importance on each year’s rankings, because “The difference in temperature between the fourth and eighth warm years is relatively small“.
WMO
