“Climate change continued to advance in 2022,” highlighted the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) this Friday, coinciding with the presentation of your annual report about the state of the planet’s climate. When the main indicators of this crisis are analyzed —such as the average increase in temperatures, the warming of the ocean, the concentration of greenhouse gases, the loss of mass from glaciers…— everything points towards this advance of the climate emergency as well. during 2022. Perhaps one piece of information sums it up best: the last eight years are the eight warmest years on record since direct measurements began in the mid-19th century. These are some of the highlights of this kind of global atlas of climate change for 2022 that the WMO has presented.
Medium temperature
The global average temperature —of the land and sea surface— in 2022 was 1.15 degrees Celsius warmer than the average for the period between 1850 and 1900. The years 2015 to 2022 were the eight warmest years recorded since the series began in 1850 of measurements. So far, 2016 is the warmest year on record. It coincided with the El Niño phenomenon, a meteorological cycle that begins with the warming of the water in the Pacific and ends up increasing the global temperature. On the opposite side is La Niña, which has dominated the planet for the past three years. But by the end of this year and 2024 the cycle is expected to change. And experts predict that El Niño will further boost global temperatures.
Greenhouse gases
But, regardless of natural variations, the main responsible for the global warming in which the planet is immersed are the greenhouse gases that humans expel and whose main source is fossil fuels. The concentration of these gases in the atmosphere (they retain heat on the planet) are also at record levels. The presence in the atmosphere of the three main ones —carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide— detected in 2021 (the last year with consolidated measurements) is the highest detected so far.
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“We need accelerated climate action with deeper and faster emissions cuts to limit the increase in global temperature to 1.5 degrees,” asked António Guterres, UN Secretary General, on Thursday. “We also need massively scaled up investments in adaptation and resilience, particularly for the most vulnerable countries and communities that have done the least to cause the crisis,” he added.
Heat waves
This crisis not only manifests itself with an increase in average temperatures, it also multiplies the intensity and number of extreme weather events, as warned by the IPCC, the UN panel of experts on climate change. These are events such as the “unprecedented” heat waves that affected Europe during the summer, emphasizes the WMO study. “In some areas, the extreme heat was accompanied by exceptionally dry conditions,” he adds. These extreme conditions were reflected “in the excess mortality associated with heat in Europe”, which exceeded 15,000 deaths in total between Spain (4,600), Germany (4,500), the United Kingdom (2,800), France (2,800) and Portugal ( 1,000). He Copernicus Climate Change Servicefrom the EU, recalled precisely this Thursday that the summer of 2022 was the warmest ever recorded on this continent.
But outside of Europe the situation was no better. China also suffered “the longest and longest-lasting heat wave since records began in the country, lasting from mid-June to late August, resulting in the hottest summer on record,” it said. this Thursday the WMO. Furthermore, in China it was also the second driest summer on record.
Sea level rise and ocean heat
The mean sea level on a global scale continued to rise in 2022 until reaching “a new maximum without precedents since records obtained by satellite altimeters are available (1993-2022)”, exposes the World Meteorological Organization. But, in addition, this problem is also accelerating: “The rate of global mean sea level rise has doubled between the first decade of the satellite record (1993-2002, 2.27 millimeters per year) and the last ( 2013-2022, 4.62 millimeters per year)”. And what is the cause? The warming that is melting the great masses of ice and increasing the ocean temperature. Between 2005 and 2019, “the total loss of continental ice from glaciers, Greenland, and Antarctica was the cause of 36% of global mean sea level rise.” Ocean water warming contributed 55%.
Loss of sea ice and glaciers
Antarctic sea ice decreased to 1.92 million square kilometers on 25 February 2022, the lowest level on record and almost one million square kilometers below the long-term average. term (1991-2020), explains the WMO report. “For the rest of the year, it was continuously below average, with record lows in June and July,” he adds.
The situation in the glaciers is also complicated due to the increase in temperatures, which led in 2022 to a loss of mass much greater than the average of the last decade in the ice fields that are used as reference and are monitored in the long term. “In the European Alps, glacial melt reached record highs due to a combination of low winter snow, a Saharan dust intrusion in March 2022, and heat waves that occurred between May and early September,” says the report. WMO in its annual summary. “In Switzerland, between 2021 and 2022, 6% of the volume of ice from glaciers was lost, and a third between 2001 and 2022,” he adds. “Measurements on glaciers in high mountain areas of Asia, western North America, South America, and parts of the Arctic also reveal considerable mass losses,” the report warns.
According to the latest IPCC analysis, global ice loss from glaciers exceeded 6,000 gigatons in the period between 1993 and 2019. That’s a volume of water equivalent to 75 Lakes Geneva, the largest in Western Europe, he explains. WMO.
ocean heat and acidification
Ocean warming also reached a record high in 2022. The WMO explains that around 90% of the energy trapped in the climate system due to greenhouse gases ends up in the ocean. This softens global warming, but it is leading the seas to a difficult situation. Added to this is another dangerous phenomenon: acidification. Because in addition to trapping heat, the seas also retain a significant part of the carbon dioxide that humans expel, which lowers the pH and leads to acidification, which has serious consequences for marine ecosystems.
Droughts and food insecurity
The drought wreaked “havoc” in East Africa in 2022, summarizes the WMO, which adds that “precipitation has been below average for five consecutive rainy seasons, something that has never happened in the last 40 years.” In January 2023, the number of people who were severely food insecure numbered more than 20 million people. The World Meteorological Organization explains that 2.3 billion people were in a situation of food insecurity in 2021, of which 924 million suffered from severe insecurity.
India and Pakistan experienced several heat waves in 2022, also at record levels, which led to a drop in crop yields in both cases. “This, combined with India’s ban on wheat exports and restrictions on rice exports after the start of the conflict in Ukraine, threatened the availability and stability of staple foods on international markets, as well as access them”. And it posed “great risks” for countries already affected by shortages of staple foods, such as many of the African nations.
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