Last year was fifth warmest on record, climate report finds

Last year was the fifth warmest on record, with the average global temperature almost 1.2C above pre-industrial levels, according to the EU’s earth observation programme.

The year was marked by 12 months of climate extremes, with Europe registering its hottest summer on record despite the presence for the third year in a row of the La Niña phenomenon that has a cooling effect, Copernicus Climate Change Service found in its annual round-up of the earth’s climate.

La Niña, the counterpart to the opposing El Niño weather pattern, involves the large-scale cooling of the Pacific Ocean’s surface. But the likelihood of its current cycle extending into a fourth consecutive year is waning, according to Samantha Burgess, deputy director at Copernicus.

‘‘Early indications are that La Niña is weakening,” she said. “If this does occur then the ‘temperature-suppressing’ impacts that La Niña is often associated with won’t be present in 2023.

“Our expectation is that this year will be warmer than average. How much warmer . . . is impossible to tell,” added Burgess.

In its report published on Tuesday, Copernicus said data indicated that atmospheric concentrations of the polluting greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane had reached their highest points in the satellite record in 2022.

Both the Arctic and Antarctic regions experienced all-time high temperatures during the year, with some parts of Siberia and the Antarctic Peninsula more than 2C above the average for the period 1991-2020 overall, Copernicus said.

Extreme weather events including floods, fires and heatwaves devastated communities around the world last year. Pakistan suffered catastrophic flooding, while the UK hit a record high of more than 40C in the summer and Europe, China and the US suffered simultaneous mid-year droughts.

The end of the year, meanwhile, brought biting cold to North America and unseasonally warm temperatures across much of Europe.

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With every fraction of a degree of warming, weather extremes are expected to become more frequent and intense, scientists have warned.

“I was really surprised that we exceeded the hottest summer on record for Europe,” said Burgess, noting 2021 was also a record year for Europe. “The climatology that we’ve seen in 2022 [shows] we’re already on borrowed time.”

The Paris agreement commits nations to strive to limit warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. But national emissions reduction plans put the world on track for warming of between 2.4C and 2.6C by 2100, the UN Environment Programme forecast last year.

“The record-breaking extreme events that we’ve been experiencing have made people more aware that the climate crisis is with us now,” said Jennifer Francis, an atmospheric scientist at US-based Woodwell Climate Research Center.

According to Copernicus, temperatures in Europe have risen by more than twice the global average over the past 30 years. The increase was partly due to the continent’s proximity to the Arctic, which is warming about four times faster than the global average, said Burgess.

“A lot of [Europe’s] weather systems are influenced by the jet stream and polar vortex,” she said, referring to the two bands of strong winds that are key drivers of the weather in the northern hemisphere. When the Arctic is warming “it generally means the winds and weather systems coming from that region are also warmer”, she added.

The scientists found that the ferocious wildfires in France, Portugal, Spain and elsewhere between June and August drove up the EU’s and UK’s combined wildfire emissions to their highest level for the past 15 years.

Susanne Dröge, head of climate protection at UBA, the German environment agency, said “droughts, wildfires and heatwaves . . . can be curbed if developed countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions immediately and drastically”, adding: “We need the political will for bold action.”

Despite the urgency of the problem, last year’s COP27 climate summit ended in disappointment for many who said the agreement did not go far enough.

Henning Gloystein, director of energy, climate and resources at the consultancy Eurasia Group, said high global gas prices had prompted an increase in the use of more heavily polluting coal. “That’s terrible news for world climate and highlights the urgent need for global co-operation,” he added.

In January, the UK’s Met Office confirmed that 2022 had been the nation’s hottest year on record, with an average temperature of more than 10C for the first time.